At A Glance
by speakingintothevoid
Summary: The love story of Chris Beck and Beth Johanssen, accurate to book and movie canon
1. Chapter 1

Dr. Christopher Beck had not made a habit of falling in love.

His last college girlfriend had tears in her eyes when she broke up with him. "I'm sorry, Chris, but it's not gonna work. For you, there's only going to be time for one in your life: love or your career. Maybe you can date after you retire."

He took her words to heart. Beck threw himself into his career and became a towering figure in the world of medicine. When he joined the military, he was similarly invested. He was charming and successful, but famously heartless. No dates, no sex, no romance. His heart was his secret. All through medical school he had developed crushes on anyone within eyeshot, his heart constantly demanding the one thing it couldn't have. By the time he added astronaut to his resume, however, he had come to believe his own robotic exterior. He filled his empty apartment with friends, and learned the beauty of male/female friendship. His life was work and society, and in both he was a towering success.

Training –

When he first met the crew he was to spend the next few years with, he was slightly blindsided by Lewis. The powerful, glamorous, redhead was exactly his type and he struggled slightly to level himself. He managed it after only a few days, and this final triumph fully convinced him of his immunity.

Johanssen was mostly invisible during this time. While the rest of the crew bonded immediately, she stayed slightly apart. Quiet, shy, and often lost in her own world, she arrived later than anyone else to training, swathed in giant grey hoodies and gulping feverishly at mugs of coffee spiked with Red Bull.

Beck noticed this heresy on the first day, shocked at the medical blasphemy. He assumed that someone on their medical team would call her out on it, but for several days, no one seemed to notice. On the third day, his patience ran dry and he pulled her aside in the hallway before she could get into the breakfast room.

It was the first time he noticed how tiny she was, swallowed in her hoodie. "Johanssen," he greeted her, slipping easily into his medical tone, "I couldn't help but notice what you did to your coffee this morning."

"Every morning," she muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"You've noticed every morning," she repeated, taking a gulp from her mug. "I noticed you noticing."

"Yes, well, Johanssen, it's got to stop. I don't have time to even go into the things that does to your heart, when they catch you at it, it could actually jeopardize your chance to…" his voice trailed off as he looked down into her giant brown eyes, and he noticed the steel shimmering underneath.

She gazed up at him trustingly, "Dr. Beck, in your professional opinion, is it better for me to be conscious or unconscious during training?"

"I - ," he began, and stopped as she took a giant slurp from her over-caffeinated drink.

From there on out, Johanssen was his favorite member of the team. But he did not fall in love with her then.

Earth Day: Part 1 –

"Earth Day" was Watney's idea, of course. The idea of having one last night out on the town, drinking and dancing and eating whatever Earth food they preferred, was one he had cherished for months. They were already years into training, and it was the last night that they would be given permission for such a feat, and he had finally talked Lewis into accompanying them.

"We're just going to a bar," he cajoled her. "One night out. Nobody's getting court-marshalled, on my honor, Commander."

She had a slight weakness towards him, they had all noticed. Most of them did. His dry wit, foul mouth, and propensity to say aloud what everyone else was thinking had endeared him to the team from the first day.

So they sat at the bar, savoring the rich salty food and the warm buzz of alcohol.

Johanssen started getting drunk on her first beer. Nobody noticed for a while. She was just as quiet tipsy as she was sober, but she started getting flirty on her second drink, and Beck felt uncomfortable. That was when Watney extended an open invitation to move the party to a nearby club. A short and predictable battle was waged over this for a few moments and the botanist walked away the victor once again.

Beck's discomfort only increased after arriving in the club. It felt strange, to be in this setting with these people, and his big brother protectiveness towards Johanssen was triggered again. She had ordered and downed three shots before anyone could stop her, and suddenly opened up. She pulled on Vogel's face, for a while, calling him "Mr. Grumpy" and demanding that he dance with her. He sweetly turned her down and then she turned to Lewis, begging for a dance. Lewis was engaged in some heated debate with Martinez, some topic far more suited to a NASA simulator than a club floor, and basically brushed her off.

Beck kept talking to Vogel, watching her cautiously, suddenly wondering what he would do if she asked him to dance, but she turned instead to Watney, who was closer, and wrapped herself around his waist. "Mark! Dance with me!" she shouted over the pulsing music, and he grinned and slammed another shot before taking her hand.

Lewis seemed to notice suddenly, and a look of concern came over her face. "Don't worry, Commander, I've got her! You nerds don't know how to party!" Mark shouted, leading her away to a sweaty cluster of dancers.

Beck's mood grew worse as he leaned on the bar, no longer even trying to follow Vogel's line of conversation. Johanssen was too out of it to do much dancing, so Watney was propping her up as they moved. She had ditched the jeans and hoodies for the evening out and had dressed up, in a sweetly punk way. Beck realized that his view of her had always been one of large brown eyes, fierce little mouth and a tiny form, but the other dancers were eyeing her in a very different way. She was wearing patterned tights and heeled boots, with a short school-girl looking skirt. Her top was cut low and her thick eyeliner made her eyes even larger. He saw her suddenly as the punk hacker she could have become if her life had been aligned slightly differently. Her little hands rested on Watney's shoulders as she twisted to the music, and Beck did not like it at all.

He waited a good fifteen minutes, wrestling with himself, but the dancers still showed no inclination to return to the bar and he moved up to Lewis. "Commander, I think it's time Johanssen got home," he shouted.

Lewis eyed him in surprise and looked out on the dance floor then back to the doctor. "She seems to be doing okay," she returned calmly.

One of the other men on the floor had been moving closer and closer to Johanssen, watching her with an expression that Watney didn't seem to be noticing.

"She's not used to drinking this much, I think I'll take her home," Beck repeated.

Lewis smiled slightly, glancing back and forth again. "Well, you're the doctor," she replied, and it was enough for him.

He moved to the dance floor and got in Watney's face. "Hey, I'm gonna take her home!" he yelled.

Mark nodded and gave a big thumbs up, turning to move back to the bar, and Beck moved to catch Johanssen.

"Doctor!" she exclaimed, grinning up at him. "Dance with me, we have to dance!"

"Johanssen…" he began, but she laughed and pulled at his hands.

Before he could say anything else, he saw the man leering behind her moving close again. Suddenly pulling her in to himself, he set his jaw and glared up at the man. All of his time in the military suddenly channeled into his eyes and he snarled over the music, "Hands off!"

The man staggered backwards, then laughed and turned away.

Beck, heart hammering in rage, dropped his eyes back to the tiny computer genius in his arms. She was swaying slightly and nestled into his neck. He stood for a moment, calming himself down, hands tangled in her short hair, head dropped protectively over hers.

"Beth," he said quietly into her ear.

She sighed contentedly. "I'm not Beth. I'm drunk."

He chuckled, "Beth, Commander Lewis says it's time to go get a taxi. Can you come with me?"

He felt her mouth scowl stubbornly against his neck and suddenly wondered how much of a battle he would have this time.

"I'm not a taxi," she pouted. "Let's go home."

He tucked her carefully under one arm and moved to the exit, oblivious to the eyes of the crew watching them leave.

"Well that was cute," Martinez remarked with a knowing smirk.

Mark laughed aloud, leaning on the bar, somewhat the worse for wear himself.

Lewis frowned thoughtfully, "Well, I guess… that's something to keep an eye on."

Johanssen fell asleep in the taxi as soon as the door slammed shut. She was nestled under his arm, drooling slightly into his favorite shirt, but he did not fall in love with her then.


	2. Chapter 2

Beth Johanssen was not one to leave the meeting of her crew to chance. Though she had spent the majority of her life in technological academics, she had not begun that way. Back in high school, as a computer whiz kid, she had dabbled in the shadier side of programming, not all of it legal. Most of those habits she dropped as she grew older, but not all. It therefore took her no time to delve into the online fingerprints of her future crewmates.

Most of what she saw was to be expected. Everyone seemed very professional ("nerd" she whispered as she scrolled through Watney's pages) and largely expected. The one person to catch her off guard was the ship's doctor. Beck had an unusually large presence online. He was a social butterfly, photographing dinners, awards banquets and charity balls, as well as huge groups of friends gathered in his luxurious apartments. According to his private messages, the man seemed to be almost daily turning down propositions from men and women all over his social circle. He dressed like a frat star and smiled too big in his pictures, as well as having a truly surreal taste in music and movies (to be fair, Lewis joined him in this category).

While everyone else seemed pleasant enough, Beth was unimpressed by the idea of spending years locked in small rooms with him.

Earth Day: Part 2 –

At the time that Beth met her future crewmates, she had little enough of a social circle. Stubborn, intense and ambitious, she was well used to people giving her a wide berth and mostly leaving her alone. On the recommendation of her recruiter, most of her smaller rebellions were overlooked by NASA, like her insistence on wearing hoodies over every outfit and uniform, and her extreme addiction to energy-spiked coffee.

Beck was the first person she had met in years to challenge her on any of these things. She grew used to the way his eyes followed her around worriedly, and the almost weekly whisper of, "Can I talk to you outside for a moment?" This almost always resulted in a concerned lecture about some worrying habit of hers, followed by, "Beth, if you aren't careful, this could jeopardize your chance to be on the mission."

It was annoying at first, as well as rather new to her, but it was also the first time anyone had so comfortably pushed in to invest in her life. It occurred to her that he actually did care that she be the System Operator on the mission and not anyone else. It took months before her sarcastic responses were replaced by weak arguments and then resigned acceptance.

She liked Beck. She did. She was big enough to admit that she had misjudged him, and that his weakness for 90s high school flicks was not a character flaw too big to overlook.

Then came Earth Day.

She was drunk when they got in the taxi, but sobering up fast. Even with her small frame, she had more of a head for alcohol than she realized, and her extreme reactions to it were mostly in her own head.

For her, everything began to change the first time she woke up in his arms. It was such a small moment. A cyclist pushed off the curb in front of them a half-second too early, the taxi driver jerked to one side and Beck's arms closed reflexively around her limp shoulders. Her eyes flickered open and she was staring at his chest, feeling safer and calmer than she could ever remember. The physiological alteration came too fast, her heart picked up its beat, she felt her cheeks warm up and her breath sunk fast and shallow in her lungs.

 _Shit._

He helped her up the stairs of the building they were all living in together, fumbling familiarly through her purse to get out her key card at the door. He scanned it again at her room and deposited her safely on her bed, leaving immediately to get her a glass of water. As soon as he left, she buried her face in her hands.

 _Shit._

He returned with the glass and sat down next to her. "You gonna be okay?" his first words since they left the club.

She nodded, unconvinced, and swallowed the water with a sticky throat.

"Did I embarrass myself?" she asked, tiredly.

He smiled, "No."

"Was the commander upset?"

"Not at all. As a matter of fact, it was my idea to bring you home, she said you were fine."

"Thanks," she said, and still in a haze, she reached up and kissed his cheek. He jumped back slightly from her on the bed, and she pulled back too, horrified. "Sorry!" she exclaimed, squishing her fingers over her mouth. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to!"

He laughed quietly, still a little uncomfortable.

She rocked on the bed, cheeks flushing again. "Oh man, I will never live that down! Watney and Martinez would literally never shut up! Please don't tell anyone I did that!"

He grinned at her, and winked, trying to put her back at ease. "Don't tell anyone I liked it."

She gazed at him dimly and he switched off her light. "Get some sleep, and don't worry. Tomorrow, you won't even remember this. Good night."

He ducked out the door, leaving her in total darkness.

Beth Johanssen turned over, pulled off her boots and twisted to face the wall. "Wanna bet?" she whispered. "Shit."


	3. Chapter 3

Training –

The manned missions to Mars required NASA to present the field of psychology with its biggest problem yet. How to take six brilliant and accomplished minds, stick them in a small tube, and blast them into the vacuum of space to live and work together for months without killing each other. Each individual relationship in the crew was considered just as mission-critical as any screw or sealant on their various space crafts. Any potential personality conflicts were more closely analyzed than most future spouses, and were being monitored daily.

Therefore, when Beth Johanssen began day one of her mission to fall out of love with Chris Beck, she was rebelling against the best team of psychological profilers the nation had to offer, and she had already lost the war long before she even realized it had been waged.

For months she struggled to find a chink in his armor, to discover some insufferable fault which would release her from the unwanted emotional bind. Thankfully, the man was full of undesirable traits. She hardly went a matter of hours in his presence before finding some action of his questionable, annoying, or downright smothering, but none of these moments were enough to do more than temporarily annoy her and then fall into place in her mind as just another aspect of his personality.

All six team members had been hand-picked to fall more closely together the more time they spent in each other's company. Each irritation or span of time shared just linked them more closely, and Johanssen was not exempt.

Beck himself did little to assist her efforts. He had always been extremely careful of his own health and as such he had programmed himself to be a morning person, always managing to get his run and protein shake in before 6 a.m. As time in training wore on, however, he realized that he now had a team of professionals monitoring his health and that his meals and exercise were carefully regulated. Now he would stumble into the breakfast room and head straight to the coffee pot, bleary eyed and tousle-headed, bundled in a slightly crumpled sweater, and refused to speak to anyone until both coffee and breakfast had been adequately supplied. But every morning as he walked past her, he would place his hand solemnly on top of her head. She had no idea when this routine had started or why, he never said anything or made eye contact, it was just a loving acknowledgement of her continued presence in his life.

And no matter how many wonderful things happened in these thrilling days leading up to her first interplanetary trip, those first few moments were always the most beautiful of her day.

They rubbed shoulders, watched movies, arm-wrestled and had long, late-night conversations. The deeper she fell, the less she was aware of it, and soon her feelings for the doctor became as normal and unquestioned in her own mind as his daily greeting pat.

Hermes –

The first month in space was a blur. The cacophony of emotions triggered by the launch and the surrealism of zero gravity was a huge distraction. Beck's every hour was carefully monitored and logged, there was no time to look up or draw breath.

After that, though, everything slowed down. The NASA psychologists had planned to give them enough chores to stay apart, but they also wanted them to celebrate much of their down time together. Oftentimes, this was spent in companionable silence. As claustrophobic and isolating as the journey really was, there was a huge bond in sharing the cramped space together. These people were the only thing standing between him and the full realization of the emptiness of space, as each passing day drifted them further, and faster, from any other humans.

Life began, a life that had more steadiness and regularity than most of Beck's years spent on Earth. He was not close with his family, and his friends had drifted in and out with his various jobs and his habit of moving suddenly halfway around the globe. These people had literally come through the fire with him and he was surprised to see that rather than growing annoyance, he felt a growing surge of affection for all of them.

Especially Johanssen.

The woman never slept. Even though NASA had dictated sleep schedules for each of them, she managed to push it as close as possible, even developing a habit of sneaking out of bed to hide out in random rooms, drifting and coding.

Beck did not often have interest in working at night, but he was an avid reader, and Commander Lewis finally instituted a policy that Johanssen could only stay awake late if Beck was with her, to force her to lie down past a certain time. He didn't really question why he was the one chosen for this task. He was the doctor, and as such had the ability of lecturing her on the dangers of abandoning a regular sleep cycle in space, but he and Lewis both knew that such lectures made little effect on the stubborn programmer. If Lewis had given him the duty with a small smile, he missed that too. He was content with the job, if only that it gave him more spare time to read, as well as peaceful evenings spent with his favorite shipmate.

The change in his behavior was gradual, and invisible to him, if not to his eagle-eyed commander. He began spending more of his free time around Johanssen, asked her a steady stream of computer questions, always seemed to be standing close by her or leaning over her when anyone else entered the room. His color changed too, in a healthy way. He was more flushed than before, his laughter more common, and a general satisfaction and cheerfulness grew daily in him while the tedium of space seemed to settle on the others.

Lewis was anxious at the development overall, but she couldn't help but smile watching him. She knew his reputation and wondered to see the robot veneer cracking at last.

Long evenings spent alone, coding and reading, gentle conversations in the common areas, working out together and storms of their laughter emanating from all over the ship. But he did not fall in love with her then.

After Evac –

Johanssen put down her tablet and stared across the quiet room. The ship hummed quietly underfoot and most of the lighting panels were out. It was half-lit and cozy in the small lounge and she found herself missing the comfort of her hoodie. Her favorite charcoal hoodie had remained behind in the HAB, and though several of the crew had offered theirs to replace it she was in a grieving period and refused to accept anything inferior.

Beck was not reading, she noticed. He had not reached to touch his screen in several minutes, and his eyes drifted sightlessly over the words. She realized suddenly that he wasn't blinking either, and wondered if there were tears in his eyes.

"Chris," she said quietly. She was not well-equipped for emotional comfort, but the use of a first name was an intimacy on ship that they reserved for each other. She hoped it would mean something.

He blinked heavily, looking up, and she saw the tears cresting on his eyelids. "Hmm?" he tightened his lips and rubbed his right eye savagely.

"You're not reading," she said, insightfully.

For answer, he took a deep breath and leaned forward, pushing his hands to his face and running them up into his hair. "No."

"Are you thinking about Watney?" she wished she could think of something comforting to say, something rich and sweet and eloquent, like the words he always found for her when she was anxious or homesick or grieving.

"It's not the first time I've lost a patient," he replied, gruffly.

"Are you thinking it's your fault?" she asked, and then flinched at her own bluntness.

"No, it's - ," his voice was husky and choked. "I'm too smart for that. There were so many people involved in…" he looked up, looking stricken, "I told her to leave. Lewis asked me, and I made the final call."

"If we'd waited, we all would have died."

He ducked his head again. "I _know_! I know." He repeated, quietly. "I know it's absurd. It's childish. It's petulant and narcissistic to think I did this. I know Lewis feels the same way… I just want him back. He wasn't just a patient, there's no objective thinking here. He's my friend and we left him there. I made a call - I did - I made a call, I can't deny that."

Johanssen waited, staring at her hands, hoping inspiration would strike like a lightning bolt, filling her mouth with wisdom and tenderness. She thought about what he did, how he handled it when she cried, and she stood and walked over to him. He always put an arm around her in comfort, so she awkwardly lifted his arm and slid herself under it.

He smiled, but didn't look at her.

"We didn't leave him there," she said quietly. "We left his body there. He was already dead, you said so yourself and you're the best doctor in all of NASA."

She put her small hand up on his neck and sat, peering up at him, trying to catch his eye, "So the way I see it, you saved all of our lives by getting us out in time. He would be happy about that. He would be happy that we are all alive."

He nodded dully, and then looked down at her with kindness. He swung his other hand over and put it on the top of her head. "Thanks."

She gazed at him from under his hand and then surged up suddenly and pecked a tiny kiss on his cheek. "You'll be okay, doc."

He looked down at her sideways, at her big eyes gazing trustingly up at him, cozy in her blue NASA sweater, the sweet smell of her hair floating around her and her hand still resting on his neck. And he did not fall in love with her then.

Glance -

He fell in love at a glance.

It was a most monotonous moment. The ship was quiet, humming with a stale grief. The crew worked steadily in various rooms in the small craft. Their previous easy banter had been swallowed up after Mark's death, and was replaced with dulling grief and occasional fierce attempt at humor. Now it was just quiet, a wound struggling to heal.

Chris Beck sat hunched over paperwork on the counter, scowling at a bloodwork anomaly that he was struggling to understand. It was situations like this that left him dazzled at the wonder of human complexity. Even in this sterile, regulated environment, biology demanded its own way. He chewed on his lip and glanced up at his companion.

Johanssen sat across from him, gazing at a computer screen. She wasn't typing, or keying in commands, just staring, her chin in her fists, her eyes darting down lines of code. Her blue sweater from a few nights ago hugged her shoulders again, but something was different. It took him a second to realize. She had taken a grey towel and draped it over her head, tucking the ends down into the sweater. She had created her own grey hoodie.

This tiny act fitted her so perfectly that his face split into a wide grin. It was all of Johanssen, in one still frame, and a small explosion hit his chest like shrapnel. All of his affection and respect for her, all of his appreciation of her careless beauty, all of his fierce protection seemed to cram into his chest at once, dazzling him.

Feeling his look, Johanssen cut her eyes over mischievously and then grinned slyly. "It was time to resurrect the hoodie!" she announced, and everything fell into place. Her hair fluffing out under the towel, her cheeks flushed from the extra warmth, her tiny fists clenched in triumph, the moment of shared laughter and the idea that this was all just a prank designed to cheer him up, the stars aligned at last in his mind and he was helpless, hopeless, drowning.

A second charge went off in his chest and he was breathless, and it was months too late to catch his breath now. All of his walls torn down, every safety net burned and he just sat there staring at her, his eyes glowing and his mouth slightly open.

She looked around the room in concern and then lowered her voice. "Beck?"

"You're beautiful," he said, and it wasn't at all the right thing and it wasn't the right tone and this - this was why he had built the walls.

She gazed back for a moment and then flushed so hard the blood went down her neck and up her forehead. "Shut up," she said, turning back to the screen. "Don't make fun of me, shithead."

He shook his head, "I wasn't. It's a good color combo on you." And that was his big speech. Decorated doctor, soldier, astronaut, facing down the first woman he had loved since he was seventeen, and that was his declaration. 'It's a good color combo.'

Shit.

Data Dump –

"Watney is alive." Johanssen stated, and it made no difference.

"Watney is alive," she repeated, firmly, into the mirror. And she still didn't believe it.

"He's alive, and he's – alone."

She thought of the HAB. Their cozy space, their living area, the extreme, almost painful delight of stepping in the airlock door and seeing a new place to live. She thought of it filled with their laughter and music and comradery, all of their space fever reignited in their new home.

And that would be nothing like where Watney is now. Alone, and afraid, wounded and with his leaky shelter battered by storms – Mark curled in the corner, lonely and fitful.

No. Of course not. Not Mark Watney. Mark Watney would survive. Probably. But… Through no help of hers. Not only had they abandoned him once, now they were just continuing to do it, drifting further and faster from him by the moment.

Mark Watney would not be alive for long.


	4. Chapter 4

Mutiny –

Everything had gotten quieter since they got the news. The original fact that Mark was alive had been good, joyous even. But as time pushed them further apart, a deep restlessness took over on board ship. Everyone was jumpy for news from home, any fragment of news from anyone was shared and processed together.

And then came a new report, uncovered by Johanssen herself. Buried in Vogel's email: a way out, a way to redemption and salvation. Mutiny, loyalty, victory. A way back to their boy. Because Earth wasn't enough anymore. Not without Mark.

The decision was voted on by all, but it was Beth's hands that put it in place. Seizing control of the ship. Giving the finger to NASA yet again. When did this become her life?

She sat hunched over her computer in the dark, far past her bedtime, humming the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song.

Beck woke up at the noise and smiled instinctively. "Yo ho, shipmate," he greeted her, uncoiling from his seat. The ship was fast asleep, but Johanssen had special permission to finish her project late, under Beck's supervision again.

"And with that, I hereby commandeer this vessel!" she exclaimed, pressing enter.

"Wait, you just finished, just now?" he asked, stumbling over to her in blurry excitement.

"Not really," she admitted. "That was for dramatic effect."

He grunted and collapsed beside her. "I know I should be upset right now about how life keeps spinning around random corners, but I'm just – I'm so deliriously happy that we're doing something."

She hummed in contended agreement, still focused on her work.

He savored the chance to really look at her. Recently he had experienced a growing paranoia that everyone on the ship was aware of his new feelings. Every time he moved towards her, laughed with her, or caught himself staring, he was convinced that everyone knew. He could really do without disciplinary conversations with Lewis. But now, alone in the dark, her eyes swallowed in her screen, he could just sit at her feet and look at her.

"And you finally get to be that anarchist hacker chick you always wanted to be," he commented.

"That is something that I told you once and immediately regretted," she replied, only half paying attention. "But yes, I am a hacker chick pirate screwing over the US government in view of the whole world and also Mars. It's a good day."

"It is not," Beck remarked drowsily, "'day'."

She turned and looked at him slowly as a new thought struck her, "Are you at all worried about what's going to happen to you when you get back to Earth? I mean, this is a serious crime for you."

He laughed, "Literally the furthest I've ever gotten to think about getting back on Earth is an image of me lying in the grass while eating three cheeseburgers. C'mon, Jo. From the minute we heard there was anything we could do to help save Mark, there was never any chance of us just going home and calling it a day. I don't care what they do." He was settled comfortably against her seat, a blanket strewn over one shoulder, blood-shot blue eyes staring up joyfully into hers.

She speculated on the picture for a moment and then smiled. "You know, Christopher Beck, I'm pretty sure everyone at NASA hoped you would be a good influence on me. I'm pretty sure I was just a bad influence on you."

For answer, he leaned over and kissed her knee affectionately.

Her heart stuttered and then calmed. Casual physical affection was a trademark of Beck's. It wasn't even just for her. But the affection he showed her was always something more intimate, head pats and casual touches had become comfortable kissing of her forehead or whatever limb he was closest to. She had learned to steady her breathing and keep on. But he was a factor in her decision for mutiny, of course. As he had pointed out, there was no way they could have decided against saving Watney. But the decision to add so much time to their trip was no longer a pleasant prospect for her. After all this time, Beck's casual affection had ways of playing with her that was wearing her out. She needed distance from him, and a clear head. Neither one of those would be quick in coming now.

Biting her lip, she flipped the tablet shut and scrubbed at her eyes. The only light came from a couple of consoles glowing in the corner.

"Finished now?" Beck murmured, half-asleep.

"As much as I can for tonight," she admitted. "The Commander wants to be there when I finalize it, to field the emergency calls from the panicked masses at home."

She went to stand up when, against her leg, she suddenly felt his heart pick up speed. His eyes opened and he stared at the ground, suddenly alert.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I need to talk to you about something," Beck began hesitantly.

Her heart similarly kicked into high gear. "What about?" she asked, breathless with sudden concern. "Is it about Watney, is there a problem?"

"Nothing to do with Watney." He shifted, pulling the blanket back around his body and curling up in a different angle, looking up at her, "Don't look so freaked out, please! You're making me nervous!"

"You're making me nervous!" she returned, shaken. "You're my doctor, Chris, don't just spring some announcement on me, what's wrong?"

"I'm in love with you," his words were clean and direct, but he dropped his eyes quickly when he saw her expression. "Please – please don't look so shocked. I know how unprofessional this is, I know it probably seems like a betrayal."

He paused to give her a moment to refute or affirm the statement, but she said nothing and he lurched on. "I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry, it's a new thing I promise and I'm not trying to manipulate you or anything…" the thought made him scrub his hands over his face. "I know it's late and we're tired, but I've been thinking all day – the trip just got longer and I don't know how long I can stay away from you when we're always together like this. It's selfish of me to say it, but it's dishonest not to, so…"

Silence reigned in the room and he finally tried to glance up again, but she was looking at the floor and he couldn't read her face and his stomach dropped miserably. "I hope – I hope you know that this doesn't mean I don't respect you, or that I don't consider you my best friend. This doesn't change that. I don't want to make you feel guilty… I mean of course you haven't done anything to encourage this except to just – keep being you in front of me. What hope did I have, really?" he laughed quietly, and then stumbled on. "If you could come to see it as a compliment, maybe that would help? Not that – just that the reasons I have for feeling this way are all based on – who you are as a person. I suppose at some point I should stop talking, but then you're going to tell me what you're thinking and I don't – I really don't want to know what that is."

He stopped again, in spite of that, and listened to her heavy breathing filling the room. Her hands were shaking and he had never been more miserable. "We don't have to mention this to the crew, unless you would prefer that. I just need to start spending more time apart from you. Maybe someone else could sit up with you at night, I could start working out alone, I don't know… I have thought about it."

Another pause. "And it's not… it's not that I don't want to see you, it's just that seeing you now may not be the best thing for me. And I'm pretty convinced that you probably don't want to see me for a while either." He lifted a hand as though to lay it on her leg, and then stopped himself. "I'm sorry, Beth. Unless there's something you need to say, I'm going to go to bed now. You can process if you want and get back to me whenever."

He looked up expectantly, but she was still looking at the floor, an odd expression on her forehead, and now her breathing was even and light.

"Alright," he said, heavily. "I'll take that to mean you'd like some time to think. Please - please don't hate me." He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then blinked them open again. This time, she was looking at him. "I do apologize for telling you this, if it's the wrong time, and I am sorry if you are hurt, but if you could see yourself the way I do you'd realize that this is just inevitable. I don't know why it took me so long. And I can't apologize for seeing you." He stood up, still swathed in the blanket, and looked down at her with infinite tenderness. "That was the wrong note to end on, probably. I think it sounded better before I said it… so I just want you to know –,"

A mechanical click, very loud in the silent ship, rang down the hall and Martinez's face, puffy from sleep deprivation, appeared in the doorway. Beck moved quickly back a step and Johanssen sunk down even lower in her chair.

The pilot didn't seem to notice. "Hey guys," he muttered, and his usually peppy demeanor was muffled now with concern. "I was wondering if I could get a chance to look at what you're doing, Johanssen. I can't get anywhere close to sleep tonight."

He sauntered over to collapse next to her, still oblivious to the tense silence hanging over the room. "Look, I want to run these numbers again. I know we've looked at them, but before we set a course, I just have to see it again, check and double-check. We don't actually know how official this is, obviously NASA doesn't endorse it, so maybe they found something we don't know about. Maybe only a few people have run these simulations. Maybe there's something we didn't factor. If we're going to do this, it has to be right. And we don't have much time to set the course."

He looked around then, suddenly seeming to realize the weird note in the room, "Hey Beck, buddy, you look wiped. You go get some sleep, I'll stay up with her. Thirty more minutes, and we both go to bed, I promise, doc."

Chris -

Beck lay still in the semi-darkness of his bunk. Words floated through his head like strings in a collapsing cobweb: everything he said, everything he shouldn't have said, everything he might have said, all of it blurring behind his eyes every time he blinked.

"Nicely done, Chris," he muttered to himself. "You really nailed that one."

It wasn't something he had allowed himself to think about until that moment. Some part of him had hoped that she just might come to care about him too. Screw NASA's regulations, screw team interpersonal relationships, screw the whole screw of psych quacks. Maybe he had misread her and she had been returning his feelings for a while. Maybe the shock of his words might spark something in herself. Maybe the next year of their lives together would cause her to see him in a new and better way. Maybe there would be someone to come home too if they ever returned to Earth.

But now he was convinced that this final conversation had only solidified her perspective of him: an over-serious, straight-laced, obnoxious big brother.

"Shit," he stated, and no amount of magnesium could drag more than thirty minutes unconsciousness into the long, empty night.

Beth -

Johanssen drifted through her conversation with Martinez on autopilot. She showed him her numbers, her programs, her math. Honestly, she wasn't that concerned. The plan had clicked in her head the moment she saw it. "Rich Purnell is getting flowers from me every day of his life if we make it back," she thought.

Back in her bunk, she lay grinning at the wall. Some part of her was aware that Beck was suffering, probably no more than what she had experienced for several years over him.

She twisted around again and whispered to the darkness. "Don't let it be a distraction. Save Watney, keep the others alive. Fight back against The Man. It's a busy schedule. Don't let him be a distraction."

She was too good, and too professional, to let this be a problem. But no amount of job aptitude could keep her from stuffing her pillow in her mouth to swallow her giggles as she fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Johanssen, Vogel, and Martinez were the first three at breakfast the next morning, circled around a tablet, muttering incoherently. Lewis paused in the doorway to savor the image. This was her team: hand-picked, trained and focused again. They had passed through grief and come out the stronger. If Watney could be saved, this was the team to do it.

Well, this was most of them. Beck appeared in the kitchen, looking far scruffier than usual. He kept his face away from the others, moving quickly to secure his meal packet and coffee.

"Beck?" his commander inquired, trying to catch his eye. "You okay?"

"Mmm?" he asked, looking up blankly. "I'm fine."

Lewis allowed herself a second to close her eyes and plan several creative murders. He didn't. Surely, he did not. There was no way that the ship's doctor had gotten carried away by the emotion of yesterday and used his time alone with Johanssen to – to what exactly? Get rejected? Johanssen wasn't obviously looking at him, but she seemed in far too good a mood to have so recently broken her best friend's heart.

Either way, this was a liability at the worst possible time. The tin man sure found a hell of a time to grow a heart.

Lewis' only priority was to keep Johanssen's eye on the ball today. Best to start right away.

She took a meal packet and began heating it up as she spoke, "Listen up. If Vogel was right yesterday, we still have a few hours to make the necessary course correction. I don't want us to cut it too close, but I need you three to use every minute of the next two hours to check any possible outcome." She lifted a hand in anticipation of Martinez's open mouth and he closed it slowly, "I know that several of you started a lot of this last night. And I'm assuming that Vogel did his own work in his bunk" - the German shifted his eyes in affirmation - "but I'd like us to go over this one more time. There's a lot of lives at stake in these numbers. Let's get to it."

Beck didn't seem to have heard any of this, but his eyes followed Beth as she left the room, then returned dismally to his breakfast.

"Are you with me, doctor?" Lewis asked gently, and he actually flinched.

"Aye, Commander."

"Alright," she said, "take care of yourself."

He nodded vaguely, and she left the kitchen, setting her jaw to keep from grinding her teeth.

Focused, my ass.

Chris -

Beck finished his breakfast and headed to the gym. It was part of his usual routine, but this morning he stayed for over an hour, pushing himself far beyond what he knew to be safe. He knew the markers of his own mental health and this was a bad sign, a habit picked up in med school. Only as soon as he felt his physical body was as worn out as his mind, did he let himself stop.

He was furious with himself. His timing, his words, his feelings. He was jeopardizing everything: his crew, Mark, their families, the whole watching world. He was jeopardizing her, in more than one way, and he was sick of his own teenage delirium.

He would give himself one day to snap back to himself, or he would…

He crashed in to Lewis in the doorway and fumbled an apology.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" she asked, never one to avoid a subject.

"I couldn't sleep," he said steadily. "I'm not sure what's wrong. I have a headache. Yesterday was stressful, I think. I may be developing something."

"Quite a cutting analysis from a doctor. Very specific."

"It's just a headache," he said, too weary to deal with sarcasm. "I just can't seem to get a grip on it."

"Oh, so the excessive weight-lifting didn't help? Strange. Get some sleep and that's an order. Your daily schedule can wait until later. It looks like we're going pretty far off book for a while anyway."

"Commander…"

"Bed, Beck. It's not a suggestion."

"I feel useless today," he muttered, and she suddenly gentled toward him. Had it been so long since she had fallen in love that she couldn't even feel sympathy for him? He wasn't a robot, a tin man, or a Mr. Spock. He was a tousle-headed, blue-eyed boy in a crumpled sweater, who fell in love with the wrong girl.

She touched his arm gently, "You're not the only one. Let me know when you wake up and I'll tell you if you're free to move around."

Nearly five hours later, Beck woke up feeling much better by virtue of the fact that he felt much worse. His headache had worsened, his lymph nodes were swollen, and his whole face ached with congestion.

He had a cold, and he had never been more relieved. At least some of his behavior of the last few hours he could now explain to himself as having a biological source rather than being pure emotions.

Swathing himself in a blanket from his bunk, he went to find his commander.

With one glance at his sad face and puffy eyes, Lewis immediately shooed him back to his bunk. He weakly made his arguments against this far over-due attempt at disease containment, but she hushed him. "Nothing's happening on the ship right now anyway," she informed him. "We informed NASA of our decision hours ago, we fought it out and won the case. We won't receive any more orders until later this afternoon. For now, we have been ordered to simply await further commands. Life is going to be complicated for a while until they figure out what we are supposed to be doing up here with all this extra time."

He looked mildly outraged at the prospect of being side-lined yet again, "What am I supposed to do all afternoon?" he demanded.

Lewis shrugged one shoulder, "Watch a movie."

Beck pouted in his room as the afternoon wore on. Martinez brought him a late lunch, further emphasizing the intensity of his quarantine as well as the uselessness of it, since the pilot stayed in the room chatting until he had finished his sweet and sour chicken. Martinez rolled his eyes at what he termed Lewis' "mother hen mode."

"Maybe she's just scared because you're the doctor. I mean, you're obviously dead weight most of the time but if we get sick, someone might actually need you. And it looks like Watney definitely will when we get there to pick him up."

Beck sniffled sourly, but was sad to see him go.

He spent the afternoon hoping that maybe Johanssen might volunteer to bring him dinner, but Martinez reappeared at dinnertime, with some pasta product and a message that his presence would be requested at a crew meeting in an hour.

Meeting -

The meeting was a strange one. Beck sat at the end of the table alone, wrapped in a blanket and clutching several tissues. Lewis spoke briefly about the courage of their decision and the necessity of maintaining that courage as the months wore on. She sketched out the plan for receiving the resupply from the Taiyang Shen and reiterated that their daily activities would mostly come to a halt for the next few days as the Houston team rearranged their schedule according to the new timetable.

Beck sat trying not to look at Johanssen. She seemed to be having a similar problem. She sat scowling down at the table, biting at a nail and sighing occasionally. The fact that he knew this was evidence of his inability to keep his eyes away. He just needed to talk to her one more time, get her official reaction, apologize yet again…

"I'm sure you all have questions," Lewis was wrapping up. "I do too. Honestly, I'm not sure that I know much more than anyone else at the moment. Tomorrow we're supposed to know more. I've already heard some talk from some of you" - glancing at Vogel and Martinez - "about a contingency plan in case the resupply goes south. The numbers on that don't look promising, but I would encourage you not to speculate until we get official word."

Chris -

Beck plodded back to his room and gave himself another steroid shot. His head was starting to clear a little bit and he felt restless. He skimmed through his reading list until he found a book Johanssen had recommended to him back in training and settled in to reread.

The ship fell quiet. Martinez's loud laugh finally disappeared into his bunk and Beck listened to the soft clicks as their various doors closed for the night. He sighed and lay back. The steroids were buzzing through his head and he felt more awake than he had all day.

Several minutes passed before he heard a soft knock on his door.

"Come in," he said, feeling his pulse speed up unexpectedly.

Beth Johanssen slid the door open and stood looking at him, "I want to stay up and code a while. Commander says I can't unless you stay up with me. Will you come out here with me for a little while?"


	6. Chapter 6

The hoodie had started as an inside joke. Martinez was the first to suggest it, then Beck, then Watney. There was a whole team dedicated to dressing the Hermes crew, for function, comfort, and aesthetic (astronauts are regularly photographed). This team packed identical light grey hoodies for the crew, but for Johanssen, they packed a charcoal grey hoodie, a clone of the many she wore every day in training. The whole crew laughed and applauded when she was presented with it.

"You've always gotta be a rebel, Johanssen!" Watney had cheered.

On route to Mars, Mark had often harassed her about it, going so far as to steal and wear it several times during those joyful months.

During evacuation, Johanssen left it in the HAB. Of course she did. They weren't exactly grabbing spare clothes on their way out the airlock. But she didn't think of it, not during the breathless evacuation, the roar of the storm, the empty horror of the return trip back to Hermes. Not until she was back in her room did she even have a chance to breathe, hanging over the side of her bed, head clutched in her hands, breathing lightly.

It was time to change, get cleaned up, go back to life. It was time for eating, and chores, and breathing and heartbeats and she wasn't ready. After several minutes she finally stood to pull on her clothes and reached instinctively for her signature hoodie. It wasn't there. Of course it wasn't. The realization took less than a second, but it wouldn't compute. Johanssen tore desperately through her clothes, trembling fingers ran over each of her possessions in the small space, and she chanted desperately, "No, no, no."

The first hiccupping sob wrenched out of her as she knelt on the floor and then an inner explosion engulfed her. She wept and wept, rocking and choking, mangling a t-shirt in her hands. "I left it behind, I left it behind, I left it behind." All of the screaming void of grief over Mark channeled into this one small thing and it was devastating. She knew where her hoodie was. It was packed away neatly, maybe a hundred yards from Mark's body.

Forty-five minutes later she pulled a crumpled blue sweater over her head and glanced in her mirror. Her face was swollen and blotched red and white. She went to wipe at her eyes and stopped herself. What did it matter? They knew she had been crying. She knew they had been. What did it matter?

Slowly, she walked out of the room towards the kitchen. She stood in the door, stricken, and they all looked up at her. Her arms went around her waist, tightly, and she felt suddenly empty and small. Beck's eyes followed the gesture and he stood up, crossed the room quickly and engulfed her in a hug. She stared over his shoulder, wide-eyed and unseeing. "I left my hoodie in the HAB." It was a choked little voice, but a silent room. Everyone looked at her dully. "I left it there."

Beck loosened his grip for a minute. "You can have mine," he said, unsteadily.

She pushed back away from him suddenly, "No!" her voice was sudden and shrill.

He stared at her.

"No," she repeated, quietly, "I'm – I'm sorry. No. It's not the same."

Three days later, Johanssen entered her room and found a light grey hoodie, folded and lying on her pillow. A note was pinned to it, in Beck's neat handwriting: "If you ever change your mind," was all it said.

Alone -

Beck entered the room carefully to find Johanssen already curled up snugly in her favorite chair. He stopped in the doorway to smile at the image, immediately noticing something different. Johanssen was wearing his hoodie.

"You're wearing it," he said, unsure if this gesture was meant as a nod to Watney or himself.

She smiled as if to herself, "We're going back now," she said. "Everything's different."

He honestly wasn't sure what to make of that comment, but so far the whole exchange had been neutral so he entered the room. He wanted to go to her, but her position, curled tightly around her laptop, wasn't very receptive. He took a seat in his usual chair and they sat silently as they had so many other nights before.

Beck opened his mouth several times and then closed it again before he began. "Did you – did you want me to finish what I said the other night, because if you want me to…"

Johanssen closed her tablet and looked up at him gravely, "Go ahead."

"I'm sorry," the words were out of his mouth before she even finished speaking, "I mistreated you and I'm sorry. My timing was terrible…"

"Your timing sucked," she said at the same time.

"It did. I thought – I let myself think that being honest with you would make up for any pain that I might have caused you and that was selfish. I just – for the past few years whenever something wonderful happens to me I've wanted to tell you first, and realizing I was in love with you felt wonderful, so... Maybe I shouldn't have said that either. I mean, it's a terrible feeling, but it's wonderful. Like something significant makes sense to me now."

Johanssen shrugged slowly, "Why did you say it? What did you want me to say?"

He lifted his hands, "I don't know! I didn't think – that's not true. I let myself imagine that maybe I had misread you, that maybe you would want to try something, I know how ridiculous that is…"

Johanssen puckered her mouth, "If Lewis found out what you said, she would take you apart slowly with a rusty box cutter. You know how she is about the regula…"

"I don't give a fuck about regulations!" Beck shouted so suddenly she jumped. "Even if we make the resupply, our life expectancy is going to drop every single day of space! There will be more things trying to kill us every hour! And the only thing I can think about is that I get to spend more time with you! I was miserable when I thought you would want to hide from me, but now that I know you're still able to look at me and talk to me I am thrilled to be your friend, to be smashed together in this tiny ship, it is selfish of me, but I am so grateful to anything that will keep us in the same place, whatever the consequences, or whatever the –," he stopped suddenly and threw his head back in the chair, "Scheisse!" he whispered, a word they had all inherited from Vogel. "I'm not making this better." He mashed his hands in his eyes. "I don't suppose it would make a difference if I told you I'm on a lot of steroi –"

As soon as he closed his eyes, Johanssen's feet hit the floor and she ran barefoot towards him and planted her mouth on his. His hands lurched into her hair and his eyes jolted open and he pulled her back slightly. They broke apart and she smiled down at him.

"What?" He asked, dimly, and then, "Oh, okay!" and then pulled her back down again.

"Finally found a way to shut you up." Beth murmured against his mouth.

They stayed there for a while, Johanssen curled up in his lap, learning how to kiss each other. Johanssen's kisses were hot and fierce and quick and Beck's were fumbling and out of practice. It didn't take long for them to figure out what they were trying to accomplish, however, and soon enough they had worked it out.

Fifteen minutes later and Beth buried her head in his shoulder, her fingers still resting on his neck, trembling slightly. Beck was smiling drunkenly, the steroids not helping his attempt to slow down his slamming heartbeat.

He dropped his mouth to her shoulder, kissing her gently and she shivered. "Okay." She said unsteadily, "Now I guess Lewis is going to have to kill us both."


	7. Chapter 7

Johanssen's hands clenched each other hard under the table. They were all staring at her, waiting for her to say it. It was ridiculous, two words were all that was necessary. She couldn't speak. Heat and pressure were building in her throat, nausea churned her stomach, and her eyes were glassy with tears. She cleared her throat quietly. It was little more than a whisper when it came. "Aye, Commander."

Asset -

Beth had known for years that she was the asset chosen to survive. If they were ever given an opportunity to save just one of their lives and to let the others die, she was the logical choice. But the chances of that moment happening were incredibly small.

To be fair, Lewis had blindsided most of them with her announcement. The math seemed so simple at first: if the resupply didn't work in any way, they would all starve to death. All of them, even Mark. Doing one last thing as a crew.

But numbers are pliable, and NASA had always been experts at pushing them from every angle. Not everyone had to starve. If the resupply failed, there would be enough food on the ship for one person to survive the return to Earth. If the others killed themselves immediately after the mission failure, one person could stay alive to return home. On the one condition that after using up all of the supplies, the survivor commenced eating the bodies of their dead crewmen.

Johanssen was the smallest, she needed less food. Johanssen was the youngest. She was the obvious choice. It just wasn't a choice anyone should have to make.

Nor was it one they had to make now. It had already been decided. Lewis just had to tell them.

The commander looked down the table at her youngest crewmate. She refused the relief of glancing away as the realization sunk into Beth's expression. "Of course, we know that we are asking the most of you, Johanssen," she said, quietly. "But at least we have the luxury of avoiding a decision. This is not your choice, nor is it mine. It has been made for us."

Martinez was the only one who had run these numbers on his own. His finger scratched silently over the tabletop and his eyes glazed vacantly out the window. Vogel stared down at his own hands. Lewis silently awaited her response. Beck's head was down, but he tilted it slightly, looking up at Beth, braced for her expression.

"Aye, Commander." Johanssen rasped, and the tears trembled, but stayed in her eyes.

Lewis paused for a moment, then began again. "In less than 24 hours we will have our answer. We have the best of China and the US working together on this, for the first time in history."

"I'm not sure if that's the good news, Commander," Martinez muttered. "Two mission controls in the same room? Can you imagine that?"

Everyone huffed a small laugh, if only to break the tension, and Lewis smiled slightly. "It's not just mission controls, Martinez. It's the whole world. Everyone is looking out for us. This cooperation effort is changing global politics. The world is coming together, not just for Mark. For all of us. Let's make sure things are perfect on this end."

Alone -

For the second night in a row, Johanssen was curled in a tiny ball in Beck's lap.

The day had been an odd one. The night before had ended with them quietly parting at the doorway and heading back to their respective bunks. There had been little discussion. Both were glowing, and happy in the stretch of time before them, time to talk about this new reality, time to figure it out. The secrecy, the planning, the kisses, all of it could be slow and lingering in the upcoming months.

They had kept up their coy happiness the next morning, smiling carefully at each other and cautiously avoiding casual banter or touches.

Then Lewis' meeting had snapped them back to reality. The resupply. It would happen the next morning. They had time that day to send messages to their families, talking in nearly real time to their loved ones. Johanssen had comforted her grieving father with the message that she would survive, even if the others did not. Her careful demeanor in the conversation had matched that of the meeting, her face still and her eyes dead.

When she entered the room that night she had gone silently to Beck and curled into his lap. He put his lips on her hair and they sat still for a long while.

"Is there anything I can say?" he asked, at last.

She shook her head, eyes still dry and flat. "I know the numbers. I don't know what else there is to say."

"Okay," he said into her hair. "Well then, will you dance with me?"

She scowled into his neck and then looked up. "What?"

"I'm just trying to think if there's anything left that no one has done in space. I honestly don't think anyone has done ballroom dancing."

Johanssen laughed in spite of herself. "Well no. I don't see why anyone would think of that. Do you know how to ballroom dance?"

"I took a couple classes in college. Don't laugh! It's a beautiful art form!"

"How did I not know this about you?" she demanded.

"Do you seriously not know how to waltz?"

She shook her head as he pulled her to her feet. "Who the hell knows how to waltz?"

"I do. And I'm going to teach you."

Johanssen pulled back to sit down again. "Um, no you're not. We can't play music, everyone is asleep."

"Can you count to three?"

Beth Johanssen looked up at him long and hard from her chair. "Is this really what you want to do tonight?"

He smiled slowly, looking at her. "I want to do anything that will keep those tears from falling." He reached out his hand and pulled her to her feet again. "And yes, we will play music quietly."

"Not your music," she muttered.

The Hermes plunged silently into space, racing and tumbling through the emptiness. Three of her passengers slept lightly, tossing in their bunks, while two of them spun gracelessly in a gravity-weighted room, giggling and knocking elbows and knees. Beth was a quick study, and soon they were moving with ease in the tiny space. Music whispered quietly through the speakers, barely reaching the walls of the room. Soon they were slow-dancing like middle-schoolers, Beth's hands on Chris' neck and his moving gently on her back. Her head was resting on his shoulder and there was nothing left to be said.

Resupply -

"Alright man!" Martinez announced, clapping Beck on the arm, "Now let's get you in a spacesuit and use those big muscly arms to catch us some dinner!"

The launch was textbook. As though the communal held-breath of two planets and a crew of wild-eyed astronauts held it on its course, the resupply shot like an arrow to the Hermes.

Johanssen watched from the window as Beck guided it in and locked it in place. They had their time.

The planet beneath them erupted in relief, Martinez was left without a quip, Lewis and Vogel shared a glance of fierce joy and a few minutes later, Mars' solitary inhabitant punched the air.

Johanssen hurried to see Beck as he left the airlock, and snuck a careful kiss on his cheek as they moved down the hallway to the others. "Thanks for getting dinner, honey," she whispered.


	8. Chapter 8

(Still trying to figure out spacing on this site. Let's see if the zeros work. Super long chapter!)

0 -The next few days passed in a happy haze for the Hermes crew. Even Lewis and Vogel cracked each other up as they worked, and Martinez seemed eager to take up Mark's mantle as the class clown. The new schedules from NASA were in as well, modified for the additional time in space. It kept all of them busy and satisfied. They even started talking about Mark again, confiding in each other things they wanted to show him, stories he would want to hear. They had a few chances to send messages back and forth. Martinez took the helm for that, and they bantered freely, letting Mark's obvious energy and enthusiasm seep back into their group as though the family were reunited again.

Beck and Johanssen continued to circle around the long-term implications of their time together. Both of them enjoyed the clandestine nature of their relationship, and the hour every night they had to be alone before bed. There was no longer any talk of sharing their secret with the rest of the crew, or of the results that might follow that. They had learned to live every day without any assurance of tomorrow.

Then one day at breakfast, Johanssen sneezed three times in a row and blew her nose loudly.

Martinez threw down his spoon. "I knew it!" he announced. "This is the end! The Martian contagion has spread, she's been impregnated by the alien beings!"

Beck shrugged, "I told you, Commander. You can't quarantine a cold. The gestation period is too long."

Lewis looked maternally at Beth, hunched in her seat in Beck's hoodie again. "You don't look good. Finish your chores this morning and then I want you to spend the rest of the day in your bunk."

Johanssen looked outraged and opened her mouth to protest.

Lewis lifted her hand. "Name one thing you were planning on doing today that you can't do in your bed with your tablet."

Johanssen hesitated and closed her mouth again.

Lewis smiled, "This is not about quarantine, doctor, this is about rest. There's no reason to push ourselves now. The last thing we need is something else to go wrong on this mission."

0 -

Johanssen headed to the gym after finishing her chores, but was only on the treadmill for about ten minutes before she noticed how high her heartbeat had spiked. Her temperature rose too fast and her legs started to feel loose and rubbery. She slowed the machine and braced herself, taking a deep breath.

"Are you supposed to be in here?" Beck asked from behind her.

"Oh I'm fine," she replied, tremblingly pulling herself off the machine. "I'm pretty sure it's just allergies. The space pollen gets really bad this time of year."

"Wow, it must be serious. Your jokes are starting to sound like Martinez." Beck lifted a hand to help her down, but she stuck her tongue out at him and then sat down heavily on the floor by the machine.

"What if he's right?" she asked, catching her breath. "What if I really did get impregnated by a Martian? I don't have time to raise a child, I have, quite literally, a full-time job."

Beck smirked, "We'd raise it together, of course. I'd take mornings, you'd take afternoons. That is assuming that the baby doesn't explode out of your chest and kill you during labor. And I promise I wouldn't judge you for your one wild night of interspecies experimentation. Anyway, as soon as we get home, the scientists would take it off your hands." He laughed, "And that is officially the longest any of Martinez's jokes have ever lived."

Beth stared down at her hands. "'As soon as we get home'?" she echoed him.

Beck stood up promptly. "Let's get you back to your bunk," he said. "We can talk more there."

She gazed up at him innocently. "But I haven't done weights yet. Isn't that what you did as soon as you got sick?"

He rolled his eyes, pulling her up. "I had things on my mind that day."

She grinned. "I know. I'm still kind of sorry about that, by the way."

0 -

Johanssen sat quietly on her bunk watching Beck move around the tiny space, collecting tissues, drinks, and medicines to keep within arm's reach of her. Her knees were folded up to her chin and she was remembering another time he had helped her get ready for bed, years ago back on Earth.

"How often do you think about being back home?" she asked.

He sighed and came to sit next to her. "Every time I've let myself think about it, something else comes up to jeopardize us. I'm getting superstitious. But that's not to say I don't think about it."

"What do you think about?" she asked.

His eyes grew distant. "My sister mostly. My parents some. I really do think a lot about cheeseburgers. Lots of different food. And then I remind myself not to think of it again. What about you?"

She nodded slowly. "I miss shopping malls. Don't laugh! I miss walking by people, knocking shoulders with rude people and catching snapshots of lives that you'll never see again. Kids having meltdowns, and teenagers flirting. I just miss that feeling of being wrapped up in lives all around me. Judging people's haircuts and outfits too, of course."

He leaned back on the bed and smiled slowly at her. "I really wouldn't have expected that to be your answer."

She laid her head on her knees and crinkled her eyes back at him, "Well it took me several months to get to missing people again. My family, I'm not super close with. I think I miss my Redbull most of all."

Beck looked horrified. "Hey now! You didn't give that up for space, you gave it up because I told you it would kill you!"

She looked smug. "And you just keep on telling yourself that."

He leaned forward. "So tell me: how much of your first impression of me could be summed up with the phrase 'interfering little shit'?"

"Oh, my first impression of you wasn't the Redbull thing!" she exclaimed. "I looked up your online fingerprint before we ever met. I used some backdoor stuff that isn't remotely legal, but you can lecture me about that later. So my first impression of you was that you were some wannabe playboy."

He groaned, "So I'm to assume that you read some of my private messages?"

"Oh, just about all of them! I read until they started getting monotonously similar. You certainly had a lot of hookup opportunities."

He spread out his hands, "It wasn't something I ever asked for!"

She took one of his hands and put it on her knees to cushion her cheek as she looked at him. "What was your first impression of me?"

He shook his head, "I don't remember it, really. And you can't attack me for that because I know you were trying to be invisible. My first thought about you that I remember was theorizing that you were trying to stay back so you had the advantage of observing all of us first."

"And you weren't wrong."

He waited for a long minute, watching her eyes wander around the room. It was a huge luxury to be alone together during the day, and he didn't want to waste any time. "What else do you think about when we return home? Do you think about me at all?"

Her eyes moved up to his slowly. "I do. I think about all of your opportunities. They got somewhat narrow up here. I'm not expecting anything to be the same at home, you know."

"Oh," he said quietly. "Oh, okay."

Martinez's loud voice boomed down the hallway outside her door, and they both looked up.

"You need to get back to work," Beth said, trying hard to break the sudden stillness in the room.

"This is literally my work," Beck protested. "I am literally the ship's doctor. I need to start wearing a sign or something."

"If you stay in here too long, somebody's going to ask questions," she explained.

He stood up and leaned down to kiss her forehead, "I'm not concerned about idle gossip. I just want to make sure I'm doing my job. Right now, my job is making you feel better. And I really want to make sure I'm doing the best I can do." He let his lips move down her face and knelt by the bed, running his hands down her sides and pulling her down until she was lying back on the pillow. Then he kissed her again, very slowly and carefully. "I warn you," he said evenly, after he was done, "if this trip is all I get to see of you I'm going to make sure I thoroughly enjoy every minute."

0 -

Johanssen's fever did not improve. Lewis had hoped for a while that she was prolonging her illness to spend more time alone with Beck in her bunk, but a fever had truly taken hold. It was stubbornly refusing to give ground in the face of all that constant care and modern medicine had to offer.

"Are we worried yet?" The commander asked Beck one evening as he returned from her room, looking weary.

"Not yet," the doctor replied, pouring himself a glass of water. "Fevers are a good thing. It's the natural way our bodies fight back on their own. The only concern is when the body gets too eager and runs too hot. But she's very uncomfortable. She's achy and restless and just a truly awful patient: it's a battle to keep her hydrated at this point. I'm trying something new and we will see how things look in the morning. I'll check on her every few hours."

"Do you still think it's just a cold?" Lewis asked.

"It's a cold aggravated by stress. Space isn't the place to be sick. She's asked me several times today to let her speak to her mother. I think if we're honest with ourselves, Commander, we're all suffering more stress the closer we get to Mark. None of us want to relive our last experience there. If something goes wrong and we have to leave him again…"

Lewis shook her head easily. "That's not going to happen."

Beck smiled without humor. "I wish my nightmares were as sure as you are."

0 -

"Mark!" Johanssen exclaimed, her head rolling on the pillow.

Beck started awake at the sound. He had propped himself by her bed and watched her now tiredly. Tears were leaking down her red cheeks and her eyes flickered open and shut.

"Mark, please, Mark," she chanted, her lips hot and swollen. "No!"

These chants had taken up several of the last few hours, as she drifted between consciousness and fever-dreams with no obvious awareness of the difference between the two.

Beck was patient. He lifted her fingers to his lips and softly kissed them, and for the first time in a while, she seemed to respond.

"Chris?" she asked, groggily.

"I'm right here," he replied.

She strained her head back on the pillow, craning her neck in pain. "My body hurts," she muttered. "I want to sleep. Is Mark dead?"

"Mark is alive." Beck stated confidently. "He is very much alive and is excited to see us in a few more months."

Her eyes roved the room restlessly, and she pulled herself up slightly. "Is Watney alive?"

He smiled grimly. "Yes, Watney is alive too. We will see him soon."

Suddenly, she began to cry. "Is Beck alive?"

He bit his lips. "Beck is alive and is trying to help you feel better."

"I want to see him." They were the words he was dreading. "Please, I want to see Chris. Is Chris okay? I want to see him, please!"

"Chris is coming," the man whispered, squeezing her hand. "He is coming any minute now. He just wants you to rest right now and get better."

She turned quickly, as though trying to bury her face in the pillow. "He doesn't want me," she whispered, confidingly, to the wall. "He doesn't want to see me! I knew he wouldn't, but he doesn't. He's gone now."

0 -

When Johanssen woke up in the morning, the fever had burned itself out. Her body felt very heavy and cool and dense and her face was dusty with tears. Her cheek was pillowed in Beck's hand, and he was twisted, kneeling beside the bed, his head propped on his outreached elbow.

She reached out with trembling fingers and stroked his forearm, trying, for the sake of his neck, to cox him slowly to wakefulness. His eyelids trembled and he came awake with a small, miserable, moan. He unwound himself stiffly and looked up at her with sleepy happiness. "You look better," he said, relieved.

"I love you," she returned.

His mouth slid open slightly and his eyes went wide as he tried to pull himself upright mentally and physically.

She smiled blurrily, "I know you told me that a while ago and I should have said something before now, but I didn't tell you I loved you because I was worried you would find out how much. And I just don't care anymore. I love you so much, Chris Beck."


	9. Chapter 9

Vogel was the first to theorize. The German had caught on in the very first few weeks of training. He had a weakness for telenovelas and soap opera romances, and this keyed him in to drama in his own life. He was the first to categorize Johanssen's huffs of impatience and Beck's wet-eyed concern for her, and he very quickly predicted almost exactly how the relationship would go down.

On Earth Day, he observed, with an unsurprised smirk, their closeness on the dance floor, and moved his prediction schedule up a bit.

But his moment of truth occurred just a few days after Earth Day, when Beth was still trying to figure out how to play off her feelings. Johanssen and Beck were alone one evening, unconsciously foreshadowing their future Hermes tradition. The three youngest crewmembers: Mark, Beth and Chris, had all stayed up late to watch a horror movie in the lounge. Mark had nodded off enough times during the last hour of the film that the others harassed him into an early bedtime. They were not sharing a space, Beck sat in an armchair while Johanssen was sprawled along the length of the couch, appreciating the generous lack of Watney taking up space.

Vogel always worked out late on Earth, so he was returning from the gym at an unusual time, and he heard the screams emanating from the horror movie and wandered to the lounge, wiping his face and draining from his water bottle, to see how many other crewmembers were up. He paused outside the one window and glanced inside. The scene was lit with only the dancing blue light from the movie, and he saw Beck hunched deep into the armchair, his fingers were pressed to his top lip and he was leaning forward intensely, staring at the screen. Johanssen had her head pillowed on the arm of the couch and she was just looking at him, more intently than he was staring at the gore on-screen. Neither spoke, and the doctor seemed lost in the on-screen drama, but Beth was simply enjoying her chance to fully look at him, to drink him in, with no danger of being observed.

Alex Vogel watched just long enough to affirm his suspicions before the creepiness of his position occurred to him and then he quickly left the scene, hurrying down the hallway with his water bottle clenched in his teeth. As he stumbled into bed a few minutes later, he took a moment to stare up at the ceiling and smile. "Yep. No way that one blows up in all of our faces."

0 -

Lewis did not catch on early. Her mind was not so primed to notice these things, but she had calculated the possibility at the beginning of something happening between any of the three single people on the mission. Johanssen seemed to flirt with both men, but her flirting with Watney was easy and childish, her banter with Beck was heavy and more intense.

The commander overheard an argument in the hallway one night as she was trying to enter her room. Their low, heated voices trickled down the hall to her ears and she hesitated.

Beck's voice was warm and heavy with concern. "Listen, I just don't want you to risk losing your place on this crew!"

Johanssen gave an exasperated sigh. "Okay, seriously, what do you care? We're not even friends! You're like an over concerned uncle who keeps pulling me aside to lecture me! This is the full extent of our relationship, you would lose nothing if I weren't here! Why does this matter to you?"

Beck's breath hissed in, and it sounded as though he took a short step back. "Beth, this is not about how I feel, this is about you keeping your job, and how important it is to you!"

There was a short pause, and then Beth responded, in a slightly breathless voice. "Did you just call me Beth? Are you – are you manipulating me?"

Beck sighed. "I am trying to build a relationship with you. You don't exactly make it easy. Beth, if we don't get along, all of us, they will have to shred this crew. They need to see you invested, and I'm – I'm truly only trying to help. But yes, I like you, and I want to get a chance to know you, and that won't happen unless we get to work together."

The next words sounded forceful, as though to belie the pettiness of the phrases. "But why do you like me? People don't usually, you know. And I'm not exactly nice to you."

Beck chuckled, "That's probably why, then. I get sick of people being nice to me. I like you because you refuse to play their games. I like the fact that you don't let people in easily. I'm counting on the idea that you only are careful with yourself because you will be bulldog loyal when someone does win your trust. And I will win it, Beth. I warn you. I have an insanely good track record of winning people over."

There was another short pause and then he started to walk away, then stopped. "But I don't have to call you Beth if it makes you uncomfortable."

There was another lingering pause and then she answered. "On occasion, you may call me Beth. If the moment is right for it. But only if I get to call you doc."

Lewis heard his smile as he replied. "My name is Chris."

Johanssen seemed to be grinning back as she said, "Uh-huh. Good night, doc!"

That was the moment when Lewis began keeping a full mental log of their conversations. This log finally came to its conclusion on the morning after the decision to mutiny, when Beck stumbled into the kitchen, sick and miserable, and she realized that the love was requited as last. When he began spending longer and longer hours in Johanssen's room during the days of her illness, the realization was sealed in her mind.

In a past life, Lewis thought, she must have done something truly awful to deserve this. Maybe she was a serial killer or something. That would explain a lot about this mission.

0 -

The Hermes continued to swing heavily through space towards Mars. Down on the surface, a lonely man fought for his survival and his sanity as he watched his body dwindling away under his skin. He spent much of his time thinking of his crew, fat and happy on their comfortable ship, probably getting nearly as stir-crazy as he was. At least he could go outside. He made sure to pester them about this fact during their rare conversations.

Watney had been a little too far gone during Earth Day to notice what the others did that night. It was actually Lewis who first triggered his attention towards Beck and Johanssen's growing closeness. Once seen, it was impossible for him to unsee. There was something in Johanssen's smile that existed only for Beck. The doctor was harder to crack, but a bond existed between the only two single men on the crew and it didn't take long for Beck to confide in Watney about his teenage decision towards celibacy. Mark considered this declaration before deciding that there were far too few people in the doctor's life who were willing to openly laugh at his decisions. Mark decided to become one of them.

One thing Watney had observed during his time spent on Earth was that people who chose to spit in the face of love tended to sooner or later have to square with karma over their decision. Mark decided to sit back with his mental popcorn and recliner and enjoy the show. Being a mature and deliberating individual, however, he stayed well out of the affair. Which was only fair, since he and Martinez had a bet going on it. Mark's money was on the two of them getting together before they left Mars, and Martinez bet that it would be after that. Neither one considered the possibility of them not getting together at all. That was inevitable.

The HAB provided plenty of time to think, and a strong man with an empty stomach finds his nights to be long and restless, so Watney continued to ponder his pet pairing as the months wore by on Mars.

Just weeks before the Rich Purnell maneuver made its way onto the Hermes, Martinez had sent him a private message: "Bet still on. Nothing yet. You owe me, pal."

Mark had officially lost and decided at last to interfere. He sent a message to Beck, obviously the slowest of the pair to catch on, and urged him to make a move. Beck had never responded to the accusation about his feelings, but now Mark realized that he had a fighting chance to win the bet: with the Purnell maneuver, the Hermes would leave Mars' orbit twice. Technically, if Beck and Johanssen got together before the Hermes officially left the planet for the second time, he could weasel his way back into the running.

Arguably, the HAB provided _too much_ time to think.

0 -

So when Lewis made the announcement that Beck and Johanssen would begin sharing a bunk when the Hermes lost a bedroom, no one was left to be surprised. As she pointed out, the Hermes was not a large vessel.

The only person left unaware of the nature of the new relationship, was Mark Watney.


	10. Chapter 10

Mark Watney was clean. It was the single most delicious feeling he had experienced since he had bitten into his first non-potato substance in months.

He was sitting in the kitchen of the Hermes, mumbling his way through a nutrient bar and a cup of water that had never (to his knowledge) been a component of rocket fuel. Beck had finally left him alone for a minute, ducking out without explanation, and the silence in his absence was dizzying. Mark braced his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward, drinking in the quiet hum of the ship and breathing richly. His fingers found each other, offering comfort, rubbing gently over one another and his eyes glittered warmly with tears.

The meds for his broken ribs were finally kicking in, but they weren't thorough enough to prevent the pain of leaning over any more, so he balanced on the edge of the fracturing pain and stared down at the floor, his mind humming with white noise.

"Hey." Johanssen said quietly from the doorway, and he jumped slightly. "Sorry!" She spread her hands out to him and approached him awkwardly. He watched her, smiling, remembering her social unease.

"Beck has threatened to murder anyone who comes in here." She offered, standing stiffly a few feet from him.

"What, you think you can take him?" Watney asked, still awed to calm by the sound of a human voice.

"It's weird to see another person again, who isn't us." She exclaimed, and then squeezed her lips together tightly. "I mean, it must be weirder for you. And it's not like you aren't us."

He smiled. "How are my parents?"

"They're okay!" She replied, eager to change the subject. "Lewis says you get to talk to them soon. Or, as well as you can. We don't exactly get cell service out here, so we have to… Yeah, you already know all this."

Mark laughed and suddenly tears were in his eyes again. He scrubbed at them before seeing that she was crying too.

"Did you…" she scowled and kicked a table leg lightly. "Did you take good care of my hoodie?"

He laughed again, wetly, nonsensically. "I wore it all the time. Even rescued it after the HAB blew."

She half-smiled and nodded. "I fucking hate myself for leaving it," she blurted suddenly.

"Hey," Mark said, comfortingly, and then stopped. There was nothing new to say on the subject of apologies, and he was too tired to pursue the train of thought. He shrugged one shoulder. "You came back, didn't you? I knew you couldn't resist this muscle-bound body too much longer." He held up a skinny, atrophied arm and immediately regretted it as he saw the look of shock on her face.

"Beth Johanssen!" Beck's tone was almost more resigned than disappointed at finding her in the one place he had told her not to be. "I asked you for one thing! Does no one actually respect my opinion on medical matters?" He brushed past her without looking up, scrolling through something on his tablet. "I'm gonna need some bloodwork, Watney."

Mark winced as he rolled up a sleeve. "I miss you too, Dracula."

"Beth, out please, before Lewis demands your head," Beck said, ripping open the plastic on a sterile syringe.

"How's the ship looking after the decompress?" Watney asked.

"Well it looks like Lewis is going to keep up her streak of being right literally all the time," Beck muttered, sliding the needle into Mark's vein. "The ship is messy, but everything is in working order. Vogel even saved my mice!"

Watney grinned, "You reckon they're mad about the extra time spent in space, or did you give them a vote too?"

Beck's hands trembled slightly and went still. He looked at the botanist in silence for a moment. "Look man, I know I've already said I'm sorry…"

Mark lifted a silencing hand, feeling weary. "We're good, Beck. We're so much more than good. I mean – all this?" he gestured to the room as though to incorporate the whole year his crew had sacrificed to save him. "We are so much more than even."

Beck nodded stiffly and slid the needle out, expertly gliding a cotton ball over the wound before it had a chance to drip blood. "Well, that's about it for now. You're good to walk around now if you feel up for it, NASA is on my ass to get these reports back as soon as possible. You good?"

"I'm good."

0 -

Wrapped up in a blanket, Mark wandered down the hall, his course set for Martinez. The pilot was at the helm, of course, muttering as he scrolled through trajectories and courses on one of the screens in front of him.

"Hey man." Mark floated up behind him.

"Well look at our little botanist burrito!" Martinez exclaimed, turning around. "I thought Beck had you quarantined in his quarters!"

Mark buckled himself into a seat. "I managed to escape him. Just wanted to find somebody who won't start crying and apologizing after five seconds alone with me."

Martinez laughed, "No apologies here! Bro, leaving your ass on Mars was the best thing we could have done for you. We get home and you'll write a book, and do cologne commercials and go places with supermodels. We just made you the sexiest botanist on the whole damn planet!"

0 -

Mark stayed with Martinez for the rest of the afternoon, still wrapped in a blanket and strapped to a chair. He looked eagerly out the window in the rough direction of Earth, but didn't talk much. Crew members came in and out to speak to him, but mostly they were still busy cleaning up and verifying that the ship was stable.

But they all gathered that evening for an hour before bedtime. The chores were done, NASA was momentarily satisfied with their cleanup, trajectory, and health screens, and they all felt as though they were truly breathing for the first time in months.

Watney had requested their version of the day's events, and Martinez was presenting a highly colorized version. Watney's gaunt face was flushed with laughter and it seemed as though no one could get enough of simply looking at him.

After a time, he became comfortable enough to begin telling anecdotes of life in the HAB, including his initial miscalculation and explosion of the hydrogen (outrage from Vogel), his unearthing of the RTG (outrage from Lewis), his burning of the Catholic cross (muttering from Martinez), and his fondling of the lab equipment (giggles from Johanssen).

Finally, Lewis raised a hand. "We have one more matter to discuss tonight," she announced. "We now have one more person needing a bunk, and we are still without two rooms. Watney is obviously free to share a room with Vogel or Martinez, but if Beck thinks we should let him have some time alone at night, we will have to arrange that accordingly."

"Wait, what happened to the other two bunks?" Mark asked.

"They overheated," Martinez replied. "Not the first time that's happened in my bedroom."

Mark's eyes slid to the side, calculating, while Beck grinned and Johanssen turned bright red.

"Wait," Watney demanded, suddenly eyeing the two of them with suspicion. "Are you two – did they seriously? Did I win the bet?"

"I already told you!" Martinez protested, before Lewis could intervene. "The bet was very clear! You lost it a long time ago!"

Watney actually rose to his feet. "The bet specified that they would get together before we left Mars! Before WE did! I didn't leave until just today!"

Martinez jumped up as well. "Oh, I think the context was very clear…"

"Wait!" Mark exclaimed again, looking at Lewis. "How are you okay with this?"

Lewis glanced at Vogel and then at Johanssen and Beck while everyone looked at her. "Well," she said calmly, "After somebody skewered his ass with a satellite and then we had to commit mutiny to get him back, everything went a little off script."

"The satellite," Mark replied primly, "was nowhere near my ass."

"So is no one going to be offended that these guys were betting on our personal lives?" Beck asked, sarcastically raising his hand.

When no one replied, Johanssen asked, "How long have you all known?"

Martinez gestured generously to Beck's whole body. "It's not like anybody was surprised! Come on, Johanssen, you couldn't help yourself! I want you to know, doc, that I do respect you as a person and you have a wonderful personality, but if she didn't jump on that, I would. And my wife would have understood."

Beck smirked at him while Johanssen giggled and buried her head in his shoulder.

"Wait, what did you bet?" Vogel asked.

"None of this means that I condone what you two did!" Lewis announced in her best 'mom voice' while glaring at Martinez and Watney.

"Now, wait a second." Beck raised a hand again calmly. "I do believe that Watney forfeited by intervention."

Martinez dropped his mouth open dramatically.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Mark waved frantic hands at the doctor. "That's not something we have to – "

"Watney sent me a message!" Beck exclaimed smugly. "He implied that something was going on with the two of us and encouraged me to make a move. I do believe that counts as forfeiture!"

Lewis shook her head in mock derision. "I can't believe how much money the world spent on retrieving this guy. Nobody's even listening to me."

Martinez started jumping up and down. "You forfeit! You forfeit the bet! You can't intervene, that's like rule number one!"

"Oh, really?" Johanssen raised her voice and pointed her chin at him defiantly. "Are you really one to talk about intervention, Rick?"

"Alright, this I wanna hear!" Mark yelled, pointing at her.

"No, no, no!" Martinez said, flapping his hands at Beth pleadingly.

"You asked me!" Johanssen proclaimed, pointing a damning finger at the pilot. "You asked me if I had feelings for him months ago, before we even got to Mars!"

Mark turned dramatically to Martinez, one hand clapped in horror over his chest, fingers wrapped around an invisible dagger in his heart. "I trusted you," he whispered, wide-eyed.

Lewis stretched out in her chair, rolling her eyes at Vogel. "Remember that calm, educated, respectable crew they promised us?"

"I did not ask you about Beck!" Martinez demanded. "It was like two months from Earth and I just asked if you were seeing anyone, or attached at all! It wasn't intervening, it was just – you know – checking in on my investment!"

"Seriously, what did you bet?" Vogel asked.

"What did you tell him?" Beck asked, looking at Johanssen with sudden interest.

Beth turned pink and dropped her face.

"Yeah, she pretty much did that," Martinez concurred.

"Wait… Beth?" Beck asked her quietly.

Mark lifted his hands high in a gesture of peace. "Okay, wait, if we both intervened than we're even and I still win! According to the original terms…"

"If you both forfeit, than the bet is dead with the added bonus that I don't end up kicking either or both of you out an airlock," Lewis exclaimed.

In the sullen silence that followed this announcement, Vogel tried again. "But really, what did you two bet?"

Mark scowled while Martinez smirked. "Well, I would win his Mustang," Martinez explained.

"You bet a car on this?" Johanssen demanded.

"And what would you get, Watney?" Vogel asked.

"A… document." Mark muttered.

"A what kind of document?" Martinez prompted.

"It… Martinez has a signed Doctor Who script." Watney admitted.

"You bet your classic Mustang against a television script?" Beck demanded.

"Yes!" The botanist declared. "Because that's how sure I was! And also because that show is fucking awesome."

Johanssen gazed at him. "Sometimes I think I live with a bunch of supernerds and then you start talking and it just puts everything back in perspective," she said calmly.

"So when was it?" Watney asked, ignoring the comment. "When did you get together?"

"Rich Purnell," Beck stated.

"What now?" Martinez inquired.

"The night of the Rich Purnell maneuver."

"After. We left. Mars." Martinez stated defiantly, punctuating his words with finger stabs in the air.

"After YOU left Mars!" Mark corrected.

"Okay, but how do we define 'got together'?" Martinez asked.

"Okay, no more!" Johanssen exclaimed as Beck stood up saying, "No, no, nope."

"I'm just saying, until we know the whole timeline we can't know for sure when…"

"Good night!" Beck called over his shoulder, as he and Johanssen hurried from the room.

"Okay, you're tired, I get it!" Martinez called after them. "But tomorrow I'm gonna need a full explanation… and maybe like a chart if you've got one!"

After they left, Lewis stood up. "Alright, everyone with an IQ below that of a five year old, bedtime, now!"


	11. Chapter 11

Johanssen was very quiet when they got back to their bunk that night. She got ready for bed pensively and curled up, watching Beck as he finished up his nightly routine and then turned to face her.

"So," he said. "Martinez said you were talking about me two months out from Earth? I feel as though I've had the wrong concept of your… timeline."

"Oh?" she asked, propping her head on her hand. "And what concept was that?"

He shrugged, climbing into the bunk. "We've never talked about it."

Beth curled up on his chest, hiding her face. "I really was very much annoyed by you at first, you know," she explained. "I really was trying to be invisible and I felt as though your eyes were constantly on me. Everyone sort of left me alone, but you kept me up to date on every minor regulation until I became concerned that you had some private information about how I couldn't stay in the program. That was why I listened to you. So I just started thinking about you a lot. I think most of it had pretty much crystallized by the time I realized anything. That was on Earth Day."

He looked confused. "Which Earth Day?"

"Watney's Earth Day. Remember? His leaving Earth party?"

He nodded. "What about it?"

"You took me home. At some point that night was when I realized I was falling for you."

"That… that was a long time ago," he said, sounding pleased and unsure.

She nodded. "I know."

"That was the night that you kissed me." She couldn't see his face, since her own was lying on his chest, but she could tell from his voice that he was smiling.

"And you told me I wouldn't remember it," she said.

"I wondered if you had," he said, musingly. "Because you said the same thing today, when you left me with the bomb."

She lifted accusatory eyes. "You remembered too then!"

He nodded slowly. "Of course I remember you kissing me. I remembered it for a long time. It made me more uncomfortable than I liked. I took you home that night because there was a man closing in on you on the dance floor and it was making me miserable. He never touched you or anything, and Watney was right there, but I hated it. I asked Lewis if I could take you home and she looked at me like I was overreacting. I lay in bed that night thinking over my behavior and reaction to your kiss on the cheek. I didn't want to think too much about it, so I just buried everything and moved on."

They lay in silence for a moment as he traced lazy circles into her shoulder.

"So you've liked me since Earth," he said thoughtfully. "I'm glad to know that."

"Why?" she asked, grinning up at him again.

"Because of what you said to me earlier. About how we wouldn't be bound to each other after we get home. I wasn't sure how to take that. It sounded as though you weren't taking this seriously."

"Why, do you not want to take this seriously?" The words were teasing, but he could feel her heartbeat pick up in her chest.

He kissed her forehead softly, slowly, and then said, "You put a towel on your head, remember? One day, after we left Watney, you put a towel on your head and said it was your new hoodie. I think you were trying to cheer me up or something, but I just looked at you, and it was just so completely – so intrinsically – you. And then something in my mind went very still and seemed to be sort of looking directly at me. And it said: this is Beth Johanssen. And she is funny, and smart, kind of an anarchist, stubborn, and badass, and loving and loyal and pretty much a sex icon to seven billion people, and she has worked herself into your thoughts and your life until you can't remember anything before her, and you are in love with her. So, yes. I am just here, ready to take absolutely whatever it is you are willing to give me."

She looked up at him with a pleased scowl. "Yours was a lot sappier than mine."

"I feel suddenly as though I have a lot of wasted time to atone for," he replied, gravely.

She shrugged one shoulder casually. "Yeah. You kind of do."

0-

Thanks to Watney's return, the Hermes crew went through another honeymoon period as a group. The ship was full of laughter, inside jokes, and long stories told in the evening gatherings. Mark's color and energy revived quickly and his body was close behind.

But he was not the same. He did not speak of his difficult nights, but his first act on board ship was to try to solve the cooling problem in Martinez's bunk. His previous engineering skills met and married with his recent experience in desperate MacGyvering on Mars and he soon had the problem worked out, sending everyone back to their old bunks (except for Beck and Johanssen, an anomaly which their crewmates drew plenty of attention to). He seemed to crave the silence and the quiet as much as he occasionally yearned for noise and energy. Even once he had his own space back, he could still waken his crewmates with his cries, and once Beck went personally to awaken him after he began heavily sobbing in his sleep. Several crew members found him in odd trances, usually with one hand braced reassuringly against the skin of the Hermes, head ducked and eyes glazed.

Mark Watney was a survivor, but he had determined to be much more than that. He had decided to be fully alive. He patiently sat through therapy sessions with Beck, whose own tentative knowledge of psychology was backed up with teams of support from the best Earth could offer. He pushed himself to spent time with the crew, and to speak seriously of memories with Beck, and jokingly of the same memories with the crew and his family. Mark was fighting. And as usual, he would win.

So the months passed, and the joy of peace restored was replaced by the tedium of space travel. As bolts and seals fractured onboard the aging ship, tensions rose and fell among the crew. The team of psychologists initially called in as a task force for Mark Watney's mental state were refocused to do all they could for the decaying resilience of the crew.

So ship and crew hobbled through space, desperate for home and dry dock. As they entered their final month in space, they were given more hours to breathe and be together.

0-

One night, just a few weeks out from Earth, Watney barged into the crew lounge. All of them were gathered for a movie night, a now weekly occurrence according to the prescription by the Earth doctors.

"It's official!" He announced, dramatically pacing to the center of the room. "I am immortal!"

"You're really not," Beck responded dryly, without looking up.

"Oh, but I am!" The botanist returned. "As if my many sols on a foreign planet were not sufficient evidence, I am now going to be immortal-er!" He collapsed on the couch and draped an arm around Johanssen. "I am going to be a movie star!"

"Having a movie made about your life does not make you a movie star, it makes you a movie protagonist," Lewis remarked from across the room.

"But I'm going to have a cameo in the film!" Watney exclaimed, refusing to be dampened.

"That doesn't make you a movie star either," Johanssen grunted, struggling to remove his arm.

"Yeah, and how can you even know that yet?" Martinez asked.

Watney's face fell microscopically. "I think it's safe to assume!" he stated. "But anyway, today I found out that they are not just making a movie, but also a miniseries about me!"

Lewis looked up slowly, glancing at the nearest screen in accusation. "How come we weren't notified about this?"

"They wanted to ask me first," Mark explained, "seeing as it's my story and all."

"Well that's just great," Martinez grumbled. "That's a movie, a miniseries, and a novelization planned before we even make it home. What's going to happen when we actually get there and people realize you're really just a dorky vegetation enthusiast?"

Watney stared dreamily out a window. "I wonder who they're going to find to play me. Someone who could really capture what it means to be me. I think I'll accept applicants starting with a minimum of three Oscars under their belts, at least two of which need to be for acting."

Beck smirked at Martinez. "Well, actors are always a desperate group of people. I'm sure some poor soul might accept the role over a career in fast food commercials."

"I miss fast food," Johanssen mused, entirely missing the point of the conversation due to not caring very much.

"So can we watch the movie now?" Vogel grumbled. "That is, the actual, non-hypothetical movie right in front of us right now?"

"I will allow it," Mark stated generously. "But if anyone notices someone with my bone structure who is sufficiently famous, just let me know, will you? I'm sure the studio will be expecting my shortlist soon."

"You will literally be no part of this hypothetical movie," Lewis explained.

"Okay, that's it, I'm starting it!" Johanssen yelled before Watney could attempt to further educate his commander.

As the opening logos scrolled across the screen, Watney murmured to Johanssen, "You realize that by signing up to be an astronaut, you kind of put yourself in the public eye. You might as well enjoy it a little bit."

She rolled her eyes up to him. "I signed up to be an astronaut so I could see Mars. I have now seen it so my work here is done. If I could literally just jump in the water and swim straight to New Zealand after splashdown and avoid all this, I would."

"They would recognize you in New Zealand too, you know," Martinez whispered loudly over her shoulder. "Everybody is going to know you. We won't be able to do anything without being recognized. And all because one asshat couldn't avoid the only projectile on an entire planet."

Beth groaned while Mark grinned and they all turned to watch the screen as the opening orchestration began.

Five minutes into the movie, Martinez started up again. "How long do you think they will remember us though?" He asked, and Vogel groaned loudly.

"Hush!" The German hissed.

"But I mean really," Martinez continued, lowering his voice a fraction of a decibel. "Mark is the one who will be on all the magazines. They will forget about us as soon as the first mine collapses. We have to further our brand!"

Machine gun fire erupted onscreen, and a woman flipped over a car door, screaming.

"I don't understand why movies with gratuitous violence are supposed to help us bond as a team," Watney complained. "Like seriously, who picks these things?"

"Maybe the violence is supposed to prepare us for being around other humans again," Beck said, dismally.

"Or maybe this is their subtle way of warning us that in our absence, the Earth has been taken over by war and zombies and shit," Martinez considered, gaining back his decibel level.

"Actually, going through a violent or horrifying experience as a group can strengthen relationships and build long-term bonds, even if it's only fictional," Lewis said.

"Is that why people in horror movies always have insane amounts of sex?" Martinez asked. "Because I don't mind watching the movie together and all, but I need you all to know it's not going to go any further than that. Seriously, how dare you? I have a wife and child!"

"I'm not putting out either," Mark deadpanned. "But that's just because I don't find any of you even remotely attractive."

Beck, who had actually gotten involved in the movie for a moment, groaned. "When exactly did this become a theoretical orgy? This isn't even a horror movie!"

"Wait, it isn't?" Martinez asked. "I thought it was."

"How would you know?" Vogel shouted. "I'm the only one who's been watching!"

Martinez, Watney, and Johanssen all glanced at each other and smirked, their plan established. Five more minutes into the movie and Beth sighed dramatically. "Do you ever miss popcorn?" She asked.

Vogel made a small strangled noise.

"Mmm, movie theater popcorn, yes." Mark sighed. "With all that neon chemical butter sprayed over it. Hot and salty."

"If they really cared about our mental health, I think they would have sent up a lot more junk food," Martinez mused.

"How?" Vogel demanded of no one in particular. "How is this a bonding experience? How?"

Beth giggled and everyone fell silent again for several minutes.

"You know," Mark said contemplatively. "No one really knows how I spent a lot of my time on Mars. You think if I told everyone I transformed myself into a badass ninja guy like that who can kill four people with a magazine, they would believe me? I mean, they can't prove I didn't!"

"Yes they can," Beck replied. "If they tried to fight you they'd find out real quick."

"I would just tell them that I couldn't fight someone without a truly noble cause," Watney explained. "Like this guy's need to… like… avenge someone or something."

"It's actually not very clear," Johanssen agreed, cocking her head at the screen.

"I mean, it's obvious the guy's angry, but I don't feel like we know his real motivation," Martinez agreed.

Johanssen winced as another fireball went up onscreen. "Well, we know he hates cars. That's the third one he's blown up in twenty minutes of screen time."

"Maybe he just likes explosions," Watney commented. "Let's see if he blows anything else up." Two minutes later, he said, "Yep. See there? He hates helicopters too. I feel like I'm really getting in this guy's head now."

0-

Beck's report that evening to the psych team on Earth resulted in a unanimous decision to keep movies as an individual pursuit.


	12. Chapter 12

Annie Montrose had a problem. The Hermes had spent months in space and public attention was starting to flag. Despite the ominous fact that the ship was wearing down, regularly throwing NASA into a frenzy of activity over some new valve or seal that had acted up, overall the return flight was very stable. No more starving astronauts, no more lonely Martians.

Annie had one last shot to capture the eye of the world with the Hermes crew and she was pulling no punches.

"It won't look staged because it won't be staged," she explained into her phone as she clicked down a hallway while scrolling through a tablet and balancing an espresso covered in Post It notes. "At least, the part about them seeing their families for the first time will be completely natural. But I want a warehouse. I want them to be flown to a warehouse in Miami by helicopter and I want that place packed. I want reporters from every magazine and blog and newspaper, I want more cameras than the Super Bowl, and I want hordes of screaming people who have never been on television before and want nothing else in life."

She plunged into her office amid a swirl of frantically apologizing interns. "I want to make this the biggest soldier returns home moment the internet had ever feverishly re-watched and sent to all their friends. I want the best photographers in angles where Time Magazine editors will fight to the death over which photo to put on the cover. Screw protocol and screw decency. NASA is going to cash a one million dollar check for every tear that falls down Mrs. Watney's face. I want Mark Watney to be the sexiest man alive. And then I want to erase him, because there's a juicier story coming and the world isn't gonna know what hit it."

She put the phone down for a moment, flicking off a short email response to an editor who had been pestering her, and hitting Enter with her middle finger just to express her feelings. She downed the rest of the espresso while an over-paid government official ranted on the other end of the line. Having given him sufficient time to make his feelings known, she picked up the phone again and purred, "I completely understand. But in two weeks' time, the Hermes Six is going to be off their ship and back on planet Earth, and they will become my responsibility. Why don't you share your point of view with Kapoor? Have a lovely evening."

She gazed soulfully out her window for a moment and then muttered. "No. No, you know what? A warehouse isn't big enough. I want an aircraft hangar."

0 -

Despite Annie's secret hopes, Mark had come back to full physical health. His diet and exercise carefully monitored by the best the planet could offer in nutrition and medical experts, funneled neatly through Beck, had "fattened him back up" as Martinez put it. But Annie Montrose knew how to roll with the punches, so her story was changing from that of a starving, wild-eyed man pulled from the clutches of a Martian orbit into his friends' loving arms, to that of a tough, steely-eyed soldier returning victorious from the battlefield. Mark Watney had not, in fact, ever served his country in the military, but Annie Montrose was not the sort of person to be held back by facts.

It was time to put on a show.

0 -

The hangar was packed. The outside of the hangar was packed. Miami was packed.

The international media, celebrity magazines, acclaimed photographers, and representatives from every corner of the globe were crammed into the coastal city.

The family members were huddled together at the front of the hangar, behind layers of metal and human barriers. When the thrumming pulse of helicopters began lashing at the air, a roar exploded from the city. Every moment from the docking of the Hermes to the final descent of her beloved crew had been watched with teary eyes and aching lungs.

Every head craned for the slightest glimpse of a famous face through the helicopters' tiny windows. But Annie had taken care of that. The six were shuttled quickly from the helicopters into a sort of tunnel and swept into the building. She met them personally for a final once-over, tugging on Martinez's military jacket and hurriedly combing Watney's hair with her own fingers like a nervous mom. Then she beamed at Beck and Johanssen. "Knock 'em dead, guys. It's your party. And welcome home."

"Thanks for that afterthought," Watney muttered, suddenly looking nervous as the roar of the crowd outside reached to rock concert pitch before suddenly dropping as some announcement was made over the speakers. Annie nodded to him and he stepped forward, heart pounding with anxiety and anticipation.

Every head was looking for him, and the crowd fell into an eerie quiet as the door opened at the end of the massive room.

Mark Watney walked out of the door and onto the stage. He was fit and handsome, dressed officially in drab green. He raised one fist over his head briefly and the room lost it. Peppered with camera flashes and deafened by the sound of reporters and audience members screaming his name, Mark hesitated, briefly lost as he scanned the crowd. In a brief lull in the screaming, a woman's voice rang out with a short, sharp cry. Mark's head snapped up as his mother darted from a corner of the stage and a hundred photographers caught a quick breath.

"Mark!" She shouted audibly.

"Mom?" He mouthed in disbelief and she was on him, the moment frozen eternally in a thousand photo frames, her hands reaching up for his face, tears lumping in her eyes and throat, his arms reaching down and around her, shock registered on his face. "Mom!" he mouthed again, and wrapped himself around her.

The crowd hushed, tears choking their own faces, but Annie's work was just beginning.

Lewis appeared on stage and the crowd went wild again, reaching up like teens for a pop star. She stood, cool and professional, searching for her husband, and he suddenly stepped out and ran for her. As the whole world watched, she took one staggering step towards him and fell on his shoulder. Their hands dug into each other's backs and they stood swaying, trembling, murmuring to each other, and the tears in the audience fell faster.

Vogel appeared on stage, looking similarly baffled. It was a simple trick, keeping the families momentarily out of view gave the moment of meeting a more eager, organic feel. This time it was a child's voice that broke through the swell of the crowd, and four children tumbled desperately across the stage, two more clustered tightly around their mother. Vogel cried out and went to his knees, wrapping his arms around the brood as his wife stood back at the edge of the tiny circle, one arm wrapped around a toddler on her hip and the other hand clapped to her mouth. Vogel stood up, letting two children slide from his arms as he reached for his wife, hemmed in by bouncing children.

The crowd was decidedly soggy now, sniffling and teary eyes were to be found even among the reporters, and things were growing quieter.

Martinez came out on stage, all of his bravado gone, just looking for his wife. "Rick!" She came running to him, swift and beautiful, faster than anyone else had, leaving their son with his trembling hand wrapped in his grandmother's. She collapsed in his arms and he grabbed her and spun her around in the air, pulling her face in for a messy kiss as the crowd went wild again. "Where is he?" He asked, and his wife dragged him over to his little boy.

"Hey, kid," He said, unsteady voice still carrying somewhat into the quietening crowd.

"Hi Papa." Intimidated by the crowd, the child stared uncertainly into his father's face.

"Come here!" Rick swung the boy high, and the child screamed with delight, camera flashes pouring over the little trio.

Everyone now stood in their little groups, and the eyes of the audience swept back to the doors at the back of the stage, Beck and Johanssen's families now waiting obediently but impatiently in their corner.

As Annie had planned, the hall fell mostly silent now, aside from the murmuring of families on stage. Most of the Hermes six were now looking over their shoulders at the door and an expectant murmur went over the crowd.

Beth and Chris stepped out into the light, their hands clasped tightly together. Annie, standing back in the darkness, grinned and squeezed her hands diabolically as she heard the crowd stutter and then explode into screams, bouncing up and down and pointing at the pair of beautiful astronauts, because just when it seemed this story of survival and success couldn't be any more perfect…

The celebrity gossip magazine photographers savagely clawed the sophisticated reporters aside and surged to the front, shouting as Beck and Johanssen grinned shyly, his head dipping over hers to whisper something as they looked for their parents. She smiled and glanced up at him, a sweet, adoring glance that papered the aisles of supermarkets for months.

He put an arm around her and drew her down to their families, Beck's sister hopping up and down in glee and hugging Johanssen enthusiastically as their parents pulled them into a group hug.

All of the families converged at that point, Watney's parents pulling him over to Lewis to specifically hug and thank her for their son's life. Martinez kept his hand firmly locked around his wife's waist as he shook Vogel's wife's hand and his son hid from the overwhelming energy of the German children. Vogel grinned and kissed his wife's hair and Beck and Johanssen hung back for a moment, as she clutched his jacket and stood on tiptoe to whisper something up to him and he leaned down to gently kiss her.

0 -

The day was blurry with press conferences, presidential congratulations, and very little food, drink or rest.

Annie was throwing them a party. It was only necessary that the Hermes Six appear for a few minutes, she impressed on them, but none of them were thrilled at the prospect. Their old wardrobe designers had carefully tailored outfits ready for the evening. While it was a big event in the annals of NASA history, it was basically just a photo op for them, Annie had explained to their blank and exhausted faces.

They were given only two hours in the evening to collapse at a hotel and get ready to leave for the party. All six of them were given individual rooms, but Beth came knocking at Chris' door just moments after they left each other. She kissed him briefly as she came in and then brushed past to collapse heavily on one of the snow-white beds. At first, she just lay there and then started to giggle and rub her back into it. "It's a real bed!" She explained, delighted.

Beck grinned at her from the doorway. "I had come the same conclusion, actually."

She sat up impatiently. "No! I mean, it's a real bed! Come and feel it!"

He walked over, smiling and kicked off his shoes, lowering himself onto the comforter and then groaning loudly. "Oh wow. I had actually forgotten what this feels like."

She squirmed over and burrowed into his shoulder. "I love you," she said simply. "And I know this is supposed to be the best day of our lives, but I'm just looking forward to life again, when I don't get surprised by sheets anymore. It's all pretty overwhelming and I kind of feel like a puppet. I don't like the cameras. And the screaming. At all. So anyway. I'm glad you were here to do it with me."

"I don't think…" he hesitated, aligning his words before speaking them. "I don't think I could have done any of this without knowing you were here with me. Honestly, you bring out a side of me that I didn't even know was a possibility. I was just lost, after Mark was hit. I made the call, and I was haunted by the fact that I would be living with that forever. I couldn't even grieve my friend properly, I was so caught up in blaming myself and hating myself and just obsessing over my own feelings. And you… brought me out of that. You make me big. And yeah, I love you too."

They sat in silence for a moment and then she whispered, "We did it. We're really alive. What in the world do we do now?"

"We get dressed up together and go to a party together and smirk at cameras together, and basically just keep doing everything else together, and I really would be happy with absolutely anything."

She grinned into his shirt. "That was disgusting."

He laughed, "I know! Earth brings out my sappy side, I guess."

"Hey." He whispered into her hair a few minutes later, as he realized she was close to falling asleep. "I have to tell you something."

"Okay," she said drowsily.

"I want you to know that Annie asked me to propose onstage today."

She shot up in horror, "Chris Beck, she did not!"

He nodded contentedly from his cocoon in the pillows and drew her down to his chest again. "She did. She really begged for it. Apparently it would do great things for the future of space travel. I said we'd already done quite a few things for that cause already. I didn't need you to tell me you wouldn't want a spectacle like that."

"Well, I hope so," she agreed, content again.

"So anyway, I thought I'd ask you now," he said, and her eyes opened slowly.

She lifted her head and he lay still, gazing up at her under his lids. "There wasn't really time to get a ring, but I wanted to ask as soon as I could. Beth, will you marry me? Please?"

Beth jumped up on her knees on the bed and pushed her tiny hands into his chest, glaring down at him fiercely. "Chris!" She exclaimed. "What are you doing? What kind of timing…? This is the first time in my life that I don't know what I will be doing for the next year! I mean… we've got the media on our tail, we don't even have a place to live!"

He shook his head, still on his back, hands tucked behind his neck. "None of that matters."

"None of that - ?"

"None of it matters. You know what does matter?" He lifted her hands off his chest and sat up, putting his hands gently on her shoulders. "This is what matters. I want to marry you. Do you want to marry me?"

She stared back, as though this question were more outrageous than the first. "Of course I want to marry you!"

"Then we'll make it work. We've always made it work. No hurry, no pressure, no media. Just a promise to each other."

She gazed back wonderingly, her eyes flitting back and forth between his, and then knocked him back down with the force of her kiss.

That night, they slow-danced in gravity.


	13. Chapter 13

It was almost a year since the Hermes Six had returned to Earth. One morning in late November, all of them woke up to the same message from Watney: "Avengers Assemble".

It was followed almost immediately by: "I can't believe I actually got to say it! Lewis gave me permission to summon everyone… She cordially invites and whatever all of us to her house for a Holiday/Aren't You Glad We Didn't All Die In Space party and she cordially invites and whatever for all of us to submit weekends we could get together for it. Watney OUT."

Martinez responded almost immediately: "Time zones, dickass, I was asleep."

Vogel: "Depends for me. Is Lewis picking the music?"

Watney: "Fair question, good sir. Lewis and Beck are both forbidden from approaching anything having to do with rhythm and/or melody. Also, whatever the hell disco is."

Johanssen: "So given Watney's history with making us fly all over the known universe, I'm assuming he's springing for the plane tickets?"

Beck: "Also, given Watney's new status as a best-selling book/movie character, I'm assuming he has the money to spring for the plane tickets?"

Watney: "…I could have lived a long and fulfilling life without the mental image of the two of you lying in bed together and giggling as you composed corresponding messages in a feeble attempt at making fun of The Martian Survivor. Cut the pillow talk!"

Martinez: "…And the on-going hunt to capture and kill the journalist who coined the term 'The Martian Survivor' is still going strong."

Martinez: "Also, are we allowed to bring a plus-one? I am really anxious to meet "The Martian's Sexy New Squeeze". I know it's real cuz I saw it on a magazine two weeks in a row."

Watney: "She's not a thing! Besides, how weird would it be if I was actually dating Lewis' actress. Isn't that wrong on like seven levels? Or however deep Hell is?"

Beck: "Like all true pirates, Watney's one and only love is the sea. And probably his ship."

Martinez: "WELL THAT SUCKS FOR YOU MATE BECAUSE I'M TAKING HER FOR A JOYRIDE IN A FEW MONTHS!"

Johanssen: "Update: Martinez is fucking the sea."

Vogel: "Sounds about right. I'm available the first weekend in December. Or is this not the right forum for an adult conversation?"

0 -

Ten minutes. That's how long it took after the last Hermes astronaut had entered the house and stamped the snow from their boots and settled into the couch in Lewis' living room for an awkward silence to fall over the room.

Lewis had moved to upstate New York and it was bitterly cold two weeks before the new year. All of them sat, moments after shedding layers of winter wear, red-cheeked and tousle-haired, and looked at each other.

Lewis's husband chuckled quietly from beside his wife. "I'm honestly impressed. How many years have you guys spent in near-constant conversation? And I actually get to be present for the first awkward pause!"

It was difficult to explain the weirdness. Seeing each other like this, in the surreal setting of Lewis's classy and luxurious house, pinned down by gravity, lives stretching long and rich in front of all of them. It wasn't quite right.

Then Johanssen started giggling. There was no real reason for it, except that she felt uncomfortable, and happy, and it was Christmastime and Beck was sitting next to her and she just started to laugh, and then Watney joined her and soon everyone else was too.

After that, there was more than enough air to breathe. Conversation happened with hot hors d'oeuvres, and then dinner passed in a warm, happy bustle. Lewis' husband was the true chef of the house, and as such was the only significant other allowed to attend the reunion. He whipped up a bowl of truly astonishing mashed potatoes and everyone took a turn offering it to Mark and being colorfully rejected. They ended up on the back porch several hours later. It was a glassed-in room, looking out over a wide, icy landscape with the moon pouring itself generously out over the snow. Lewis served old fashioneds and hot cider while her husband observed the little family curiously.

Beth was in her favorite place, curled up tightly against Chris' side, her head nestled between his shoulder and chest. Vogel sat next to them, leaned back on the couch, smiling broadly at every joke told and story shared. Lewis shared a large chair with her husband, and leaned forward animatedly, her face open and eager to have her family home again. Martinez and Watney sat in identical chairs, the center of attention, grinning at everyone and kicking each other occasionally whenever the conversation allowed it.

"Remember Earth Day?" Martinez asked suddenly, after a particularly warm pause.

"Oh that was such a tacky idea!" Lewis exclaimed.

"That was a remarkable idea!" Mark declared, slurring only slightly. "One of my best, I would say!"

Rick took the chance to kick him. "How would you know?" he demanded. "You're the only one who doesn't remember it! Except Johanssen, of course…"

"I remember it!" Watney protested. "Well, I remember a lot of it anyway. I remember those two slow-dancing away out there and then hurrying off to get a room." He gestured broadly to Chris and Beth.

Beck grinned suddenly. "Okay, so speaking of getting a room…" He stopped and grunted as Beth poked him in the stomach, the effect somewhat lost by her awkward angle. "Ow!" He exclaimed. "What, was that not the right segue?"

Lewis cocked her head up with a grin. "Alright, what's going on?"

Chris cleared his throat and smiled around at them. "We just wanted you to know that Beth isn't drinking anymore. She hasn't had a drink actually for almost three months now."

"What?" Vogel exclaimed.

"Wait a second…" Martinez leaned forward eagerly.

"I'm gonna be an uncle?" Watney yelped, springing up from the couch.

Lewis was grinning like her face would burst. "That is going to be one smart kid," she commented.

"It's a little early to be telling people, but we wanted to see your faces and we weren't sure when we would be together again," Beth explained.

"Wait a second," Martinez repeated. "Three months? That means I won't be there for the birth!"

"Martinez, you weren't going to be there for the birth anyway!" Beck said.

"Oh no, I'm the best at birthing babies! I'd be right there holding her hand the whole time!" He said, smiling happily.

"I would literally rather have anyone else," Beth said, scowling. "But it doesn't matter because you'll be on your way to Mars again!"

"Somebody's gotta clean up after me," Mark said, swigging his drink and kicking Martinez simultaneously. "You know how many people I've had lecture me about the 'environmental damage' I did up there by surviving? I told them I just didn't want to burden the planet with my corpse."

"People are stupid, man." Rick commented, kicking back. "That's why I'm running away to get away from all that shit again. But your baby won't even remember me when I get back!" He whined, turning to Beth again.

"Congratulations, guys," Vogel said generously. "Parenthood is incredible!"

"Yeah, I can't believe you missed out on the chance to conceive the first baby in space, though. How cool would that kid have been?" Watney demanded.

"Are you saying this baby isn't going to be as cool as its hypothetical and non-existent sibling?" Beth asked. "That's it, you're out of the birthing suite too!"

"It's okay, man," Mark said soothingly to Martinez. "I'll show them your picture every day. I'll raise them right, in memory of you."

0 -

Secret Santa gifts came next and everyone shouted with laughter as the gag gifts were exchanged. Mark's new Mr. Potato Head was very popular, as was Martinez's flame-retardant crucifix. Vogel received a World's Best Dad mug and box of cigars for "adopting all of us" as Beck explained adorably, and the German just nodded his head sagely. Lewis received an elaborately illustrated cookbook for advanced chefs and rolled her eyes. Her one attempt to have the crew over for dinner at her old apartment during training had nearly led to her flooding the entire apartment complex. Martinez sputtered with laughter when Beck opened a gift from him: an infant onesie with the personalized stitching: "My Daddy got Laid in Zero Gs".

"It was meant to be a joke!" Rick explained. "I didn't know!"

Everyone had calmed down some by the time Watney handed Johanssen her parcel and she ripped it open eagerly. Beth, the ever-stoic one, had a weakness for gifts and holidays. Her small fingers swiftly stopped moving though as they made contact with the warm roughness inside the paper. Her eyes shot up to his with a question.

Mark nodded, smiling curiously. "It should be the exact same as the one you lost. I owed you that one, I think."

Everyone leaned forward as Beth lifted the charcoal grey hoodie from the crumpled paper. She just gazed at it for a moment, her fingers running over the small NASA emblem stitched into the breast, and there were tears in her eyes again. She cleared her throat. "Thanks," she said gruffly.

"There's something else inside," Watney told her as she moved to pull it over her head and a small envelope fluttered to the floor.

Johanssen put the envelope in her lap and then slid into the hoodie with a little sigh. Everyone sat around and beamed at her as she grinned at Mark and slid her hands into the pockets and snuggled down into the familiar softness. Then she picked up the envelope and crunched it open. She pulled out two sheets of paper and scowled as she began to read the first.

Beck and Watney exchanged a brief, understanding glance over her head.

"You really did it!" Beth exclaimed to the botanist, holding out the message as evidence. "You really told him to ask me out! You so completely and thoroughly lost the bet!"

Mark grinned. "You should read the second message."

Johanssen frowned and picked up the second sheet. The letter was the message Beck eventually sent back to Watney.

"Mark," it read. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond. You see, you gave me a mission and I had to see it through before telling you how it went. I took your advice, and I can't say that it ended the way I had hoped. I told her how I felt. Actually, I told her about 700 things, none of which were worth saying even once, much less repeating. She looked about as horrified as you can imagine, and hasn't spoken to me since. Still, I have to say, I respect you for telling me to do it. Maybe I did fuck it all up, but I'm still glad you called me on my bullshit. I think I've been falling for her since the beginning, pulling into it as slowly as gravity and now I'm in freefall and I'm not even sure which way is down. Not sure that it's too important to know that anyways. I know what you would say about never giving up, but you didn't see her face when I was talking… Maybe it's most important that I was honest with myself anyway, and now at least I get the long journey home to try to convince her to be my friend again. It's going to be worth it, all of it. I think you'll agree that she's a hell of a friend to have on your side. So thanks for the advice, and also thanks for getting your ass stranded on a hellscape planet since it gave me a little bit more time to spend next to her (whether or not that was your original intention). We'll see you soon, buddy. Hang in there.

Beck."

Seeing the look on her face, Watney quickly turned and tried to engage the others in conversation, giving Chris and Beth a moment to speak quietly.

"You wrote this the day after you told me you loved me?" she asked, holding it out like an accusation.

"The night I told you, actually. I sent that message before I went to bed and didn't sleep all night. I haven't actually reread it since I first sent it to him, so I hope it doesn't say anything you wouldn't want to…"

She cut him off again by twisting over onto her knees and pulling his face down to kiss it, over and over again. "I love you too, Chris Beck," she whispered fiercely.

0 -

The rest of the evening slid quickly into night and then pulled itself into morning. There was more drinking, and a second round of dessert and then Martinez got his hands on a guitar and they all sang carols for a while. There was more laughing and more stories, and the occasional brief nap, still curled up in blankets and rugs on the back patio, surrounded by mounds of snow.

But they were all awake as the sun slid milky-pink fingers up the sky and they watched in silence, astronauts always, mesmerized by the heavenly sight.

"This time last year, we were almost home." Lewis murmured, in the thick, contended voice of someone who has been kept awake all night by laughter.

"That, and pretty damn near homicidal," Watney remarked.

"Also running out of food and water on a leaky spaceship," Beck added.

"Yep," Beth murmured. "I wouldn't change a thing."


End file.
